Concerns for climate change and declining oil reserves lead to a shift of transportation
systems in many industrial countries. However, alternative drive concepts contain to some
extent critical raw materials. Since the availability of certain raw materials could be
decisive for the success of emerging technologies, concerns are growing about the
potential limitation of resources. This brought about a growing attention to the subjects
of criticality and resource security of raw materials by science, policy and industry.
Four of the resulting surveys are described in terms of their framing of criticality,
their indicators for evaluating criticality, and their rankings of potentially critical
raw materials. Critical raw materials are used in alternative drive concepts because of
their specific properties. The focus of our work lies on batteries for electric vehicles
with special attention to lithium-ion batteries being one of the most promising candidates
for energy storage there. Lithium-ion batteries use as major cathode materials lithium,
manganese and cobalt, all of which are potential critical. A material flow model of the
global manganese cycle is developed. It could be identified that there is a lack of
relevant data for processes and flows. The lack of data impedes a comprehensive view and
therefore no final conclusions could be drawn, which advice the need for further research.
Using manganese as an example, it could be illustrated how material flow analysis can
contribute to compiling relevant preparatory work that can subsequently serve as a basis
for a prospective support of a criticality evaluation and to inform stakeholders and
policy makers about the effectiveness of various interventions to reduce the risk or the
effects of supply chain disruptions.