BASF (Ludwigshafen, Germany; www.basf.com), through its global battery materials business unit, today announced that it has signed a long-term licensing agreement to acquire global rights for the production and sale of lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery materials technology from LiFePO4+C Licensing AG (Muttenz, Switzerland; an affiliate of Clariant AG; www.clariant.com).
LFP is an innovative cathode material used in the production of advanced lithium-ion batteries (LiBs). The addition of LFP intellectual property rights to its battery materials portfolio provides a strong complement to BASF’s current activities in Nickel-Cobalt-Manganese (NCM) cathode materials for LiBs. As a result of this agreement with LiFePO4+C, BASF becomes the only company worldwide that is licensed to produce and market LiB materials by both the Argonne National Laboratory – the global leader in NCM technology – and LiFePO4+C – which licenses a leading patent portfolio in LFP technology.