Extracting More Value From Battery Materials

We are on a mission to preserve our lifestyle by managing our energy resources better. In other words, by reducing demand and pumping less carbon into the atmosphere. There are two back-to-back ways to achieve this. The first involves extracting more value from battery materials. While the second manages our energy demand down to levels we can sustain.

Three Ways of Extracting More Value From Battery Materials

Clean Technica suggests several ways of increasing battery value using technology that’s fast coming on stream.

Store More Energy Per Pound of Critical Material

Critical materials are those with essential roles in energy storage. Here we think of non-renewable lithium and cobalt for example. Rocky Mountain Institute notes considerable progress to date. In fact we could redouble lithium battery density again by 2025. This would reduce energy demand relatively, but not absolutely on its own.

Extend Battery Life through Innovative Design

The second way of extracting more value from battery materials is as simple in theory as making batteries last longer. However, this reduces the scale of annuity income for manufacturers because there are less sales. None the less we are making progress on two fronts:

1… Longer battery ‘first lives’ in original, high demand applications for example electric vehicles.

2… Repurposed ‘second lives’ in less demanding follow-through uses such as home energy storage.

Recycle Critical Battery Materials for Re-Use

Ideally, we should recycle every ounce of every battery. But the first step in that direction should be recovering scarce materials critical for battery operation. Our lead-acid batteries recycle easily because their design lends itself to this. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for lithium-ion batteries.

We would need at least one of two things to change, before we can say we are truly on the road to a circular battery economy. Based on the current situation we should either replace lithium-ion technology. Or re-design the application so it becomes ‘made for recycling’.