Battery electrolytes: Correlation
Prices it moves with, and why
Battery electrolyte is a lithium salt, mainly lithium hexafluorophosphate (LiPF6), dissolved in carbonate solvents with additives. Prices track lithium, fluorine chemicals and solvent costs, and swing with Chinese capacity and EV demand.
No public price Battery electrolytes has no public monthly price series: Sold to cell makers on private contracts; no public price index.What its price moves with
LiPF6 is made from lithium carbonate or lithium fluoride, so the salt price, and with it the electrolyte price, rises and falls with the lithium cycle. In 2021 and 2022 LiPF6 prices soared as lithium surged, then collapsed with it.
No public price for lithium, so the link is explained in words only.Anhydrous hydrogen fluoride, made from fluorspar, supplies the fluorine in LiPF6 and in additives such as fluoroethylene carbonate. HF availability in China, linked to fluorspar mining and environmental checks, shapes electrolyte salt costs.
Not enough overlapping price history to measure.Ethylene carbonate and related carbonate solvents are made from ethylene oxide and carbon dioxide. Solvents are most of the electrolyte by weight, so ethylene oxide costs feed through, though less sharply than lithium salt costs.
Not enough overlapping price history to measure.The phosphorus in LiPF6 comes from phosphorus pentachloride, made from yellow phosphorus produced from phosphate rock using much electricity. Phosphate is a small cost item, but Chinese phosphorus curbs can tighten salt supply.
Not enough overlapping price history to measure.Every lithium-ion cell, LFP included, needs electrolyte, so cell output drives demand. Electrolyte is a modest part of cell cost, but the shortages of 2021 showed it can bottleneck battery production.
Not enough overlapping price history to measure.How to read these numbers
Correlation of monthly changes (the number in the coloured pill) compares how much each price moved, month by month, since 2006 or the first month both series exist. It runs from −1 to +1: near +1 the two usually rise and fall in the same months, near 0 there is no link, and a negative number means they tend to move in opposite directions. Above 0.7 is strong, 0.4 to 0.7 moderate, 0.2 to 0.4 weak.
12-month changes compare year-on-year moves, which shows whether two prices share the same cycles even when the month-to-month noise differs.
Price function is a straight-line fit of the two prices on logarithmic scales: price ≈ k × (partner price)β. β is how much this price moves, in per cent, for a 1% move in the partner over the whole period, and R² is the share of the variation the fit explains. Two prices that both drift up with inflation can fit well without any real link, so read it together with the monthly correlation.
Lead or lag checks whether the monthly correlation is clearly higher when one price is shifted by 1 to 6 months.
Correlation is not cause. The reasons on each card explain the economic link; the numbers show how strongly it has shown up in prices. Proxy series are US producer price indexes or related prices and can blur the real link.
Data: World Bank Commodity Price Data (Pink Sheet), October 2026; US Bureau of Labor Statistics producer price indexes, IMF primary commodity prices and US EIA prices via FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, retrieved November 2026. Calculations by this site.