Photo of Lea Rouquette by Henrik SandsjoSwedish researchers say they have developed a new method of recycling batteries from electric vehicles that allows recovery of 100 percent of the aluminum and 98 percent of the lithium.Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology have presented the efficient way to recycle metals from spent batteries, and at the same time minimize the loss of valuable raw materials such as nickel, cobalt and manganese.Furthermore, no expensive or harmful chemicals are required in the process because the researchers use oxalic acid–an organic acid that can be found in the plant kingdom.”So far, no one has managed to find exactly the right conditions for separating this much lithium using oxalic acid, whilst also removing all the aluminum,” said Lea Rouquette, PhD student in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering. “Since every battery contains aluminum, we have to be able remove it without losing other metals.” In the Chalmers Battery Recycling Lab, Rouquette and Martina Petranikova demonstrated how the new method worked. They took the pulverized component in the form a finely grounded black powder and dissolved it in a clear liquid – oxalic. The exact procedure, which looks like brewing coffee but is actually a scientific breakthrough, is not as simple as it seems. Researchers have developed a new recipe to use oxalic acids, an environmentally-friendly ingredient found in plants like rhubarb or spinach. Martina Petranikova is an Associate Professor at Chalmers’ Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering. She says that one of the biggest bottlenecks of today’s processes involves removing residual materials such as aluminum. This innovative method can offer the recycling sector new alternatives and help solve development problems. Hydrometallurgy is a method of recycling that uses water to dissolve all the metals found in an EV cell. Then you remove “impurities”, such as aluminum and Copper. You can then separate valuable metals like cobalt, manganese, nickel and lithium. The researchers reversed the order to recover the aluminum and lithium first. They can reduce the waste by using less valuable metals to make new batteries. The last part of the process – when the black mixture is filtered – is similar to brewing coffee. The liquid is where aluminum and lithium are, while the “solids” contain the other metals. The next step is to separate the aluminum and lithium. “Since they have very different properties, it shouldn’t be difficult to separate them,” Rouquette says. Our method is a promising route for battery recycling, a route that deserves further exploration, says Rouquette. She published her results in Separation and Purification Technology.
According to Swedish researchers, a new technique for recycling batteries from electric vehicles enables the recovery of 100 % aluminum and 98 % lithium. The effective way to recycle metals from used batteries while minimizing the loss has been presented by researchers at Chalmers University of Technology.
The first article to appear on Good News Network was Breakthrough in Recycling EV Batteries Can Recover 100 % of Aluminum and 98 % of Lithium Thanks to Swedish Scientists.
