London, England — Researchers have discovered new techniques that help to recycle electric vehicle batteries and cut down on carbon emissions and costs.
The new technique involves reusing parts of the battery like nickel and cobalt, meaning that over EVs lifetime emissions would be reduced and there would be less of a dependency on China. Gavin Harper, a research fellow at Faraday Institution in Britain, says that they had to find new ways to recycle batteries as opposed to other metals.
“We can’t recycle complex products like batteries the way we recycle other metals. Shredding, mixing up the components of a battery and pyrometallurgy destroy value,” said Harper.
Pyrometallurgy uses high temperatures to extract metals and purify them in blast furnaces, which can be expensive. So, researchers at the Faraday Institution have come up with a way to extract the metals by using ultrasonic waves so they can recycle the cathode and anode without damaging it.
In the United States, a government-sponsored project has learned to make the old new again with ReCell, which focuses on thermal and solvent-based methods to reuse battery cathode.
Jeff Spangenberger who spearheaded ReCell, says “ReCell is working on separating different cathode chemistries,” to cut down on emissions and cost.
