China-headquartered cathode material suppliers listed on Made-in-China.com page 3 (2026-06-05) show entry-level pricing of US$ 84.00 - 97.00 with a 2 kg minimum order quantity from Shandong Gelon Lib Co., Ltd., a Diamond Member with Audited Supplier status [S1].
The same index groups cathode material under the Electrical & Electronics > Battery, Storage Battery & Charger > Battery Materials > Li branch, alongside related search terms Lithium Ion Battery Material and Wholesale Cathode Material [S1]. For buyers comparing battery pack supplier directories, the cathode-material tier is consistently the upstream bottleneck cell, which is why MOQ-driven sourcing matters more than headline price.
What a cathode material actually is in this supplier context
On Made-in-China.com the cathode material category is filed under Battery Materials > Li, with related searches pulling in Rechargeable Battery, AGM Battery, Sealed Maintenance Free Battery, and Lithium Ion Battery Material — the commercial cathode chemistries commercialised in that branch include LiCoO2 (LCO), LiNixMnyCozO2 (NMC) and LiFePO4 (LFP), as confirmed by Liaoning Key Laboratory of Energy Materials and Devices guidance on the Li-rich Mn-based branch as a research direction [S8].
The Key Laboratory statement — "the mismatch between anode and cathode materials seriously hinders the development of lithium-ion batteries" — frames cathode chemistry as the constraint on cell energy density, which is why a buyer choosing among LFP, NMC and LCO reads supplier data through three gates: nominal voltage, cycle life, and thermal-runaway threshold [S8]. The solid-state variant documented in the Journal of Electroceramics uses Ta-substituted Li7La3Zr2O12 paired with LiCoO2 and reacts severely at temperatures around 1085 °C, so any supplier offering "high-temperature co-fired" solid-state stock is selling into a process window that requires thin-film deposition or liquid precursor coating rather than bulk sintering [S3].
Supplier tier, MOQ and price band comparison
Three price/MOQ data points are visible on the 2026-06-05 page 3 listing: Shandong Gelon Lib Co., Ltd. at US$ 84.00 - 97.00 per 2 kg MOQ as a Diamond Member Audited Supplier based in Shandong [S1]. That places the laboratory and pilot-grade cathode material tier in an 84-97 USD/kg band — a useful ceiling for R&D buyers, well below automotive cell-line pricing, which is normally negotiated under long-term offtake contracts outside public B2B indexes.
Across the same Made-in-China.com supplier ecosystem, audit and response-time metadata is consistent: ISO9001:2015, ISO14001 and ISO45001:2018 appear on the storage-rack index as a benchmark for the platform's audited-supplier format [S2]. That means a buyer who insists on an Audited Supplier report is filtering on a known set of certifications rather than a self-declared status, and response-time ≤ 3 h is a published Quick Response flag on multiple Diamond Member profiles [S1][S2].
For comparison, the adjacent Zhuzhou Weilai New Materials Technology listing — filed under cathode protection rather than battery cathode material — exposes a different product family: plasma electrodes, copper-tungsten anodes, and rotating anode targets, with ODM and sample services available and a Zhuzhou City, Hunan Province base [S5]. That listing is a useful negative control: a buyer searching "cathode" must distinguish battery cathode active material from cathodic-protection consumables and plasma-spray electrodes, which are not interchangeable. Zhuzhou Weilai's R&D capacity is ODM-only, which is the typical pattern for plasma-electrode specialists serving the thermal-spray industry rather than the lithium-ion supply chain [S5].
Decision criteria when shortlisting a cathode material vendor
Four criteria separate a defensible shortlist from a price-only buy on this index. (1) Chemistry and format: LFP (LiFePO4) for stationary storage and entry-level EV, NMC for higher energy density, LCO for consumer-electronics cells, and the Li-rich Mn-based research branch for next-generation energy-density work [S8]. (2) MOQ and packaging: 2 kg MOQ at the pilot end versus 1 Set / 1 Piece MOQs on rack and rack-adjacent product pages, so a battery-cell pilot line and a warehouse fit-out are not on the same procurement lane [S1][S2]. (3) Audit status: Diamond Member with an Audited Supplier report is a stronger signal than a free registration, and Shandong Gelon Lib carries that flag on the 2026-06-05 page-3 listing [S1]. (4) Process route: solid-state cells require thin-film deposition or liquid precursor coating because Ta-substituted Li7La3Zr2O12 and LiCoO2 form detrimental secondary phases at temperatures around 1085 °C, so the supplier's deposition capability matters as much as the powder specification [S3].
Where this supplier list does not fit
The Made-in-China.com cathode material category is a B2B wholesale index, not a cell supplier. A buyer who needs finished 18650 or prismatic cells, or a pack assembler with UN38.3 documentation, should pivot to the related Lithium Ion Battery / Rechargeable Battery branches and treat the cathode material page as a raw-powder sourcing lane [S1]. For an end-product cell buyer, the battery pack supplier directory map is the more direct path; for a powder buyer it remains the cathode material index itself.
The automotive supply chain history matters for context: Japanese OEMs placed early bets on EV battery demand in 2010, that bet under-delivered, and a decade later Chinese and other Asian battery and cathode suppliers scaled into a different demand pattern driven by government policy [S7]. For 2026 sourcing, the practical consequence is that Chinese cathode material vendors now lead on cost per kg for LFP and on volume for NMC precursor, and the B2B index MOQ tier reflects that — a 2 kg pilot bag is the lowest published entry point on the Made-in-China.com page 3 listing [S1][S7].
Cross-reference to the encyclopaedia on material selection
Buyers who treat cathode material as a single chemistry often miss the underlying material-property gating. The reference entry on copper material selection is relevant because copper foil current collectors set the overpotential and tab-welding window for any LFP or NMC cell, and copper purity (C11000 vs C10200) drives the busbar and tab design that the cathode powder must be coated onto. The magnetic material entry is adjacent: LiFePO4 cathode lines use electromagnetic separators on the precursor feed (FePO4) and any stray magnetic contamination above the supplier's stated ppm limit will short the cell during formation cycling. For solid-state pilot work, the quartz material page covers the crucible and tube grades used in the high-temperature co-firing window that the Journal of Electroceramics paper warns against above 1085 °C, and the additive manufacturing material reference covers the binder and feedstock side of cathode electrode coating, which is the other rate-limiting step after active material procurement. [S1]
Sourcing signals worth tracking through Q3 2026
Three signals are worth watching on the cathode material index. First, MOQ drift: a 2 kg pilot MOQ on Shandong Gelon Lib's 84-97 USD/kg listing [S1] is a useful early indicator of where small-batch R&D pricing sits; if entry-level MOQs move up to 5-10 kg on the same Diamond Member flag, that is a sign of upstream precursor tightening. Second, audit churn: Diamond Member / Audited Supplier status is a published flag, and the rate at which suppliers fall off that list after a Failed Audit refresh is a leading indicator of the platform's quality floor [S1][S2]. Third, adjacent-category separation: a cathode protection page (Zhuzhou Weilai) and a cathode lamp page [S6] both exist on the same platform; a procurement team that does not filter on the Battery Materials > Li branch will pull in plasma electrodes and CCFL cathodes, neither of which is a battery active material. Re-check the 2026-06-05 page-3 listing, the Liaoning Key Laboratory of Energy Materials and Devices research page, and the 2016 Journal of Electroceramics solid-state paper for the process-window numbers when shortlisting a vendor for a 2026 pilot run [S1][S3][S8].