The demand for lithium ion batteries is growing a lot. The increase in the use of electric vehicles contributes to this. This boom in demand brings with it several problems. One of them is that it increases the potential risk of contaminating the environment with hazardous waste from these batteries, since after many charge and discharge cycles they lose their effectiveness and must be discarded.
Another problem is that the supply of lithium and other chemical elements from their natural deposits could be reduced in the future, or be insufficient to cover a very large increase in demand in a short time.
Another potential problem is that the natural deposits of lithium and other chemical elements that are vital for batteries of this class suffer from a strong geographic concentration.
All this gives rise to the risk, in the near future, of a severe shortage of these chemical elements in the market, and the associated increase in the price of lithium-ion batteries.
A good recycling of lithium and other chemical elements of the batteries would allow avoiding or mitigating these problems.
Currently, less than 5 percent of spent lithium-ion batteries are recycled worldwide, and the pool of these spent batteries is projected to reach 11 million tons by 2030.
However, existing methods for battery recycling are far from perfect.
Dalton Tay’s team at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore have devised and perfected a technology for low-cost recycling of lithium-ion batteries.
The new technology allows low-cost extraction of valuable metals present in discarded lithium-ion batteries. (Photo: NTU Singapore)
The new method uses discarded fruit skins to obtain an essential reagent. It is respectful with the environment. And it can be adapted to use on an industrial scale.
Following remarkably successful pilot tests, Nanyang Technological University entered into a collaboration with Secure Waste Management Pte Ltd (SWM), a Singapore-based battery processing and recycling company, to test the technology on a large scale in a plant pilot.
The battery recycling pilot plant has the capacity to process up to 2,000 liters of crushed used batteries mixed with solvents derived from fruit skins for the extraction of materials present in the electrodes, such as lithium, cobalt, nickel and manganese.
A key feature of the pilot plant is its modular design, which allows it to be easily configured to obtain the optimal reaction conditions to extract different types of metal.
The pilot plant has already started operating.
Throughout this year, the NTU and SWM team will work to optimize processes in order to maximize the performance of the extraction of valuable metals from battery waste, aimed at the reuse of said metals.
Team members will also assess the technical performance and economic viability of the plant with the goal of identifying improvements needed to bring the technology to market. (Fountain: NCYT by Amazings)
