Researchers have developed a recycling method that can recover 100% of the aluminum and 98% of the lithium in electric vehicle batteries.
Swedish researchers say they have developed a new, more efficient method for recycling electric vehicle batteries.
“Because the method can be scaled up, we hope that it will be used in industry in the coming years,” said study leader Martina Petranikova.
In traditional hydrometallurgy, all metals in electric vehicle batteries are dissolved in inorganic acids.
”Impurities” such as aluminum and copper are then removed and valuable metals such as cobalt, nickel, manganese and lithium are recovered.
Although the amount of residual aluminum and copper is small, it requires several purification steps, and each step in the process can mean a loss of lithium.
Researchers at Sweden’s Chalmers University of Technology have developed a recycling method that can recover 100% of the aluminum and 98% of the lithium in electric vehicle batteries.
It involves changing the current sequence of processes and primarily processing lithium and aluminum.
At the same time, losses of valuable raw materials such as nickel, cobalt and manganese are minimized.
“Until now, no one has been able to find the right conditions to use oxalic acid to separate such a large amount of lithium while removing all the aluminum at the same time,” said Leah Rouquette, a graduate student in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering. at Chalmers University of Technology.
“Since all batteries contain aluminum, we need to be able to remove it without losing other metals.”
In their battery recycling lab, Rouquette and research leader Petranikova placed used car batteries and their crushed contents in a fume hood.
The finely ground black powder is dissolved in a clear organic liquid called oxalic acid, a greener ingredient found in plants such as rhubarb and spinach.
Place the powder and liquid into a machine similar to a kitchen blender. Here, the aluminum and lithium in the battery are dissolved in oxalic acid, leaving the remaining metals in solid form.
The final step in the process is to separate these metals to extract lithium, which can then be used to make new batteries.
“Because these metals have very different properties, we don’t think it will be difficult to separate them. Our method is a promising new way to recycle batteries that is definitely worth exploring further,” Rouquette said.
Petranikova’s research team has spent years conducting cutting-edge research into recycling metals in lithium-ion batteries.
He is involved in various collaboration projects with companies involved in the recycling of electric vehicle batteries. The group is a partner in major research and development projects and its brands include Volvo and Northvolt.