Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden have published a new report on lithium battery recycling. They say they have a new method for responsible electric car battery recycling, and it is easier and cheaper too. We went straight to work to investigate this further!
New Responsible Electric Car Battery Recycling
The team at Chalmers University told Science Daily their hydrometallurgical process works at room temperature, which is something new. Now hydrometallurgy is an established water-based aqueous chemistry to recover critical metals. Although this currently involves thermal pre-treatment consuming energy.
But our responsible electric car battery recycling process lowers temperatures from 60 / 80 degrees Celsius, to room temperature they explain. And moreover the process takes just 30 minutes as opposed to several hours. Their work began after they discovered recycling companies use widely differing temperatures and processing times.
They first decided to explore the range of possibilities to determine optimum times and temperatures. That’s because our findings can make a huge difference for developers in this area, says Burcak Ebin. He is a researcher at the Department for Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at Chalmers, and one of the main authors of the article.
More Details of Chalmers University Research Technology
The researchers first explored how thermal pretreatment and hydrometallurgy affect each other. Because they were keen to compare incineration, and more environmentally-friendly pyrolysis which does not use oxygen and gives best results. To reduce the costs further, they say we need to cut the steps in the recycling process.
They are now working on several projects in close collaboration with developers of the technology. Their work is particularly important because solid state batteries coming online contain significantly more different metals. And this makes cost-effective EV battery recycling a greater challenge, according to the team.
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