Davos 2025: We are working with IITs on how to innovate with zinc for EVs, says Vedanta’s Priya Agarwal Hebbar

Priya Agarwal Hebbar, Non-Executive Director of Vedanta Ltd, said that Vedanta is closing working to improve its share in the domestically produced critical minerals space soon. Talking to Business Today at the World Economic Forum 2025 at Davos, Switzerland, Agarwal Hebbar new things are happening in the world of mining, especially in the critical minerals space.

Talking about innovations and critical minerals space, Agarwal Hebbar, giving an example, said: "People are talking about lithium for electric vehicles and battery manufacturing. We are focusing on tech, research, and innovation. We have partnered with IITs to work on how zinc can replace lithium. Zinc is more in terms of abundance, more efficient, cheaper, and safer..."

Hindustan Zinc, a subsidiary of Vedanta Ltd., is currently focused on the exploration, mining, and smelting of zinc, lead, and other non-ferrous metals. The company's range of products includes zinc ore, lead-zinc concentrate, zinc metal, lead metal, cadmium metal, silver metal, and sulphuric acid.

Agarwal Hebbar, the daughter of billionaire Anil Agarwal, founder of Vedanta Resources, stated that India is in an advantageous position with regards to its critical mineral reserves, which have yet to be fully tapped into.

"Under Vedanta 2.0, we are focusing on more and more of the transition of metals, more on energy, mainly renewable energy, and technology... For the energy transition to happen successfully, the World Bank has said we need $1.7 trillion in mining investment. We see an opportunity in India. India is in a sweet spot where it can thrive in this sector."

Talking about innovating with zinc under the group company, Hindustan Zinc, Agarwal Hebbar said: "The company is working towards exploring ways on how zinc can replace lithium in the battery sector. There is a lot of positive feedback on this part not only for EVs but for data centers, etc."

Giving a timeline for the innovative breakthrough, Agarwal Hebbar said the company may come up with some breakthrough innovation in two years or so. "We may take one or two years to get the right technology in place to make the product available to replace the lithium batteries. It will take another 2-3 years to get that in the global market and work with automobile companies in this direction. In total, four to five years easily."