EV battery recycling breakthroughs

Significant breakthroughs in recycling EV batteries could help the automotive industry tackle criticism that such batteries come with a heavy carbon footprint.

That’s thanks to the effort of extracting mined materials used in their manufacture, Movemnt reports, adding the breakthroughs could make valuable supplies of materials such as cobalt and nickel go further while reducing dependence on China and difficult mining jurisdictions.

“We can’t recycle complex products like batteries the way we recycle other metals. Shredding, mixing up the components of a battery and pyrometallurgy (using high heat) destroy value,” says Gavin Harper, a research fellow at the government-backed Faraday Institution in Britain.

EV batteries are generally shredded into very small pieces, known as black mass, which is then processed into metals such as cobalt and nickel.

Direct recycling would preserve components such as the cathode and anode, and could drastically reduce energy waste and manufacturing costs.

Researchers from the University of Leicester and the University of Birmingham working on the Faraday Institution’s ReLib project use ultrasonic waves to recycle the cathode and anode without shredding and have applied for a patent.

The technology recovers the cathode powder comprising cobalt, nickel and manganese from the aluminium sheet, to which it is glued in the battery manufacture. The anode powder, typically graphite, is separated from the copper sheet.

Andy Abbott, a professor of physical chemistry at the University of Leicester, says separation using ultrasonic waves would result in cost savings of 60% compared with the cost of virgin material.

Ultrasonic technology can process 100 times more battery material over the same period than conventional methods, he says.

ReLib is working on a project to use robots to separate batteries and packs.

A government-sponsored project at the US Department of Energy called ReCell is in the final stages of demonstrating different, but also promising recycling technologies that refurbish battery cathodes.

ReCell, headed by Jeff Spangenberger, has studied many different methods, including ultrasonics, but focuses on thermal and solvent based methods.

“To make lithium-ion battery recycling profitable, without requiring a disposal fee to consumers, and to encourage growth in the recycling industry, new methods that generate higher profit margins for recyclers need to be developed,” he says.

Eventually, recycled material could be blended with virgin material to get the required ratios of nickel, manganese and cobalt for an EV battery.