Momentum Technologies Inc., a Texas-based materials science company that is focused on extracting critical metals from electronic waste, has licensed an Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) process for recovering cobalt and other metals from spent lithium-ion batteries. Less than 5% of spent lithium-ion batteries in the United States are recycled.... Read more →

Recycling Technologies, a specialist plastic recycling technology provider; Neste, the leading provider of renewable diesel, sustainable aviation fuel, and a forerunner in drop-in renewable and circular chemical solutions; and Unilever, the consumer goods manufacturer, will collaborate to develop further and to harness chemical recycling to recover and to reuse plastic... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) announced more than $27 million in funding for 12 projects that will support the development of advanced plastics recycling technologies and new plastics that are recyclable-by-design. As part of DOE’s Plastics Innovation Challenge, these projects will also help improve existing recycling processes that break... Read more →

While tires remain one of the most recycled products in the US, end-of-life markets are not keeping pace with the annual generation of scrap tires, according to a new report released by the US Tire Manufacturers Association (USTMA). The 2019 Scrap Tire Management Report—USTMA’s 14th—reveals that almost 76% of scrap... Read more →

Every year, Netherland-based student company TU/ecomotive produces an electric car with a team of 21 BA students from the Eindhoven University of Technology, with the aim of showing the world that a hypothetical, sustainable car of the future can be a reality today. The design of the sixth TU/ecomotive car—Luca—was... Read more →

BASF SE is investing €16 million into Pyrum Innovations AG, a technology company specialized in the pyrolysis of waste tires, headquartered in Dillingen/Saar, Germany. With the investment, BASF will support the expansion of Pyrum’s pyrolysis plant in Dillingen and the further roll out of the technology. Pyrum is currently running... Read more →

European battery maker Northvolt signed a $600-million private placement, led by Baillie Gifford, Goldman Sachs Merchant Banking Division and Volkswagen AG, enabling the company to make further investments in expanding its production and recycling capacity as well as R&D activities to support the target of establishing 150 GWh of manufacturing... Read more →

Jaguar Land Rover is working with ECONYL nylon to develop high-quality interiors made from ocean and landfill waste. Next-generation Jaguar and Land Rover models will feature floor mats and trims made with ECONYL fiber from recycled industrial plastic, fabric offcuts from clothing manufacturers, fishing nets from the farming industry, and... Read more →

Li-Cycle Corp. a lithium-ion battery resource recovery company, will invest more than US$175 million in its first commercial lithium-ion battery recycling Hub at Eastman Business Park (EBP) in Rochester, New York. (Earlier post.) The Hub is a wet chemistry/hydrometallurgical facility that will refine battery-grade materials from black mass generated from... Read more →

Hyundai Motor Group and SK Innovation Co. will cooperate in the development of a sustainable ecosystem for electric vehicle (EV) batteries. The two parties announced their plan to cooperate in diverse business areas related to the EV battery industry, including battery sales solutions, battery management service and battery reuse and... Read more →

As magnet rare earth prices rise and supplies become increasingly scarce through the second half of the decade, cerium, lanthanum and terbium will help fill the gap, according to Adamas Intelligence. As Adamas details in a new report, over the past decade, there have been numerous studies demonstrating the potential... Read more →

The US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Reducing EMbodied-Energy and Decreasing Emissions (REMADE) Manufacturing Institute announced approximately $35 million to support research and development (R&D) that will enable US manufacturers to increase the recovery, recycling, reuse, and remanufacturing of plastics, metals, electronic waste, and fibers. The funding opportunity announcement (FOA) is... Read more →

UC Riverside (UCR) engineers have developed a way to recycle PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastic waste, such as soda or water bottles, into a nanomaterial useful for energy storage. An open-access paper on the work is published in the journal Energy Storage. The researchers first dissolved pieces of PET plastic bottles... Read more →

The US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) will fund 49 new Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) research and development projects across 23 states, totaling nearly $53.4 million in funding. Of these projects, the Advanced Manufacturing Office (AMO)... Read more →

Brazilian researchers have demonstrated a new chemical approach for producing biodiesel from domestic cooking oil waste by using lithium hydroxide mixed with either sodium hydroxides or potassium hydroxides as catalysts. Their work, published in the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy, could enable future studies related to the use of... Read more →

Geomega Resources Inc., a rare earth clean technologies developer for mining and recycling, and USA Rare Earth, LLC, the funding and development partner of the Round Top Heavy Rare Earth and Critical Minerals Project in West Texas, have entered into a Letter of Intent (LOI) to recycle rare earth-containing production... Read more →

A record 53.6 million metric tonnes (Mt) of electronic waste was generated worldwide in 2019, up 21% in just five years, according to the UN’s Global E-waste Monitor 2020. The new report also predicts that global e-waste (discarded products with a battery or electrical plug) will reach 74 Mt by... Read more →

Ways2H Inc., a global producer of renewable hydrogen from the world’s worst waste streams, and Ford, Bacon & Davis, a leader in energy facility engineering, procurement and construction (EPC), are collaborating to design and to build waste-to-hydrogen facilities in California and other locations in the United States, to produce renewable... Read more →

Audi began using aluminum in 1994 with the first Audi A8 with the Audi Space Frame. Audi continues to use the lightweight metal in various components of what is now the fourth generation of the luxury sedan as part of an innovative multi-material mix. The production of aluminum is very... Read more →

Energy company SGH2 is bringing the world’s biggest green hydrogen production facility to Lancaster, California. The plant will feature SGH2’s technology, which will gasify recycled mixed paper waste to produce green hydrogen that reduces carbon emissions by two to three times more than green hydrogen produced using electrolysis and renewable... Read more →

Texas A&M University (TAMU) engineering researchers have devised a simple, proliferation-resistant approach for separating out different components of nuclear waste. The one-step chemical reaction, described in the ACS journal Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, results in the formation of crystals containing all of the leftover nuclear fuel elements distributed uniformly.... Read more →

Ten years after ArcelorMittal introduced the first S-in motion study for fuel-powered vehicles (earlier post), it is launching a new set of S-in motion solutions for battery electric vehicles (BEVs). To visualize the smart BEV steel solutions, an online 3D car configurator is now available. The configurator shows how ArcelorMittal’s... Read more →

Honda Motor Europe is expanding its battery recycling partnership with SNAM (Société Nouvelle d’Affinage des Métaux) to advance the sustainable usability of its end-of-life traction batteries. The pan-European arrangement will see SNAM collect and recycle batteries from Honda’s increasing number of hybrid and electric vehicles and either potentially prepare them... Read more →

Researchers in Europe have demonstrated the use of ionic liquids for recycling bonded NdFeB permanent magnets. An open-access paper on their work is published in the RSC journal Green Chemistry. Permanent NdFeB magnets are of two types: sintered and (polymer or resin) bonded magnets. Both types are (partly) built up... Read more →

A consortium led by the Fraunhofer Research Institution for Materials Recycling and Resource Strategies IWKS and including Proton Motor Fuel Cell GmbH, MAIREC Edelmetallgesellschaft mbH, Electrocycling GmbH and KLEIN Anlagenbau AG, is developing a closed-loop recycling concept specifically for PEM fuel cells. The “BReCycle” project is funded within the 7th... Read more →

Li-Cycle Corp., a North-America-based lithium-ion battery resource recovery company, recently completed its first shipment of commercially recycled battery material, containing energy metals concentrate. (Earlier post.) The shipped product was processed at Li-Cycle’s facility in Ontario, Canada and contained key energy metals—such as cobalt, nickel and lithium—used in lithium-ion batteries. Li-Cycle... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) announced up to $25 million in funding for plastics recycling research and development (R&D). The funding opportunity announcement (DE-FOA-0002245) is part of the Department’s Plastics Innovation Challenge, a comprehensive program to accelerate innovations in plastics recycling technologies. The Advanced Manufacturing Office and Bioenergy Technologies... Read more →

Fortum, BASF, and Nornickel have signed a letter of intent to plan a Li-ion battery recycling cluster in Harjavalta, Finland, serving the electric vehicle market. This would enable a successful “closed loop” cycle to re-use the critical metals present in used batteries. In March 2019, Fortum announced that it had... Read more →

In Germany, the DeMoBat collaborative project is developing a robot-assisted dismantling factory for traction batteries and electric motors for EVs. These processes would constitute and important element of a resource-efficient and sustainable circular economy for electromobility. The traction battery in particular represents a central cost factor of electromobility and also... Read more →

BASF is launching the pilot platform reciChain in the province of British Columbia (BC), Canada, as a response to plastic waste. The scalable blockchain solution will support the track and trace and monetization of plastics within the value chain, through innovative Digital Badge and Loop Count technology. According to a... Read more →

BMW’s press shop in Dingolfing—the largest of the BMW Group worldwide—is the first in which all aluminum sheet waste is separated and recycled to make it reusable for industry. The BMW Group has invested around €6.5 million euros in the technical retrofitting of the Dingolfing press shop for the implementation.... Read more →

Empire State Development (ESD) announced that Canada-based Li-Cycle Corporation will establish its first US-based Li-ion battery recycling facility in New York State. Li-Cycle Technology uses a combination of mechanical size reduction and hydrometallurgical resource recovery specifically designed for lithium-ion battery recycling. The technology can do so with a recovery rate... Read more →

Audi and Umicore have successfully completed the test phase of their strategic research cooperation. (Earlier post.) The result is that more than 90 of the cobalt and nickel in the high-voltage batteries of the Audi e-tron can be recovered. The car manufacturer and the materials technology and recycling expert are... Read more →

European Li-ion battery maker Northvolt has launched Revolt—a program devoted to recycling of lithium-ion batteries. As a first move towards securing a European ecosystem for lithium-ion battery recycling, Northvolt will establish a pilot recycling plant in Västerås, Sweden, adjacent to Northvolt Labs manufacturing plant. The pilot plant is anticipated to... Read more →

Continental and Pyrolyx have been cooperating on developments in the technology field of recovered carbon black over recent years. This joint development commitment aimed to lay the foundation for using recovered carbon black (rCB) in various tire segments during tire production. Pyrolyx and Continental have now announced that the companies... Read more →

Recycling technologies for end-of-life lithium ion batteries (LIBs) are not keeping pace with the rapid rise of electric vehicles, setting up a potentially huge waste management problem for the future, according to a new study led by researchers at the University of Birmingham. The review of lithium-ion battery recycling suggests... Read more →

Researchers in the US have developed a catalytic upcycling process using platinum nanoparticles supported on perovskites to convert single-use polyethylene (PE) (such as grocery bags) into value-added high-quality liquid products (such as motor oils and waxes). An open-access paper on their work is published in ACS Central Science. Hundreds of... Read more →

Researchers have developed a new catalytic method for upcycling abundant, seemingly low-value plastics (polyethylene) into high-quality liquid products, such as motor oils, lubricants, detergents and even cosmetics. The discovery also improves on current recycling methods that result in cheap, low-quality plastic products. Northwestern University, Argonne National Laboratory and Ames Laboratory... Read more →

Neste, the world’s leading provider of renewable diesel, renewable jet fuel, and an expert in delivering drop-in renewable chemical solutions, and REMONDIS, one of the world’s largest privately owned recycling, service and water companies, have signed an agreement to collaborate in the development of chemical recycling of plastic waste. The... Read more →

Beijing Shougang LanzaTech New Energy Science & Technology Co., Ltd. a joint venture between carbon recycler, LanzaTech, Shougang Group, a leading Chinese iron and steel producer, and its New Zealand partner, TangMing, have successfully produced more than 9 million gallons of ethanol from recycled steel mill emissions in their first... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) announced the 15 winners of Phase 1 of the Battery Recycling Prize, a prize that aims to reclaim and recycle critical materials (e.g., cobalt and lithium) from lithium-based battery technology. The Phase 1 winners will each receive $67,000. For a total of $1 million... Read more →

Mercedes-Benz announced a partnership with China-based Farasis Energy (earlier post) for the supply of battery cells produced with electricity from renewable energies as well as recycling and the observance of human rights in the supply chain. With Ambition 2039, we have set the course for sustainable mobility. In addition to... Read more →

The “Recycling Li-ion batteries for electric Vehicle” (ReLieVe) project, founded by Eramet, BASF and SUEZ, will receive a €4.7 million in funding by EIT Raw Materials, a consortium initiated and funded by the European Union, and the three members. The objective is to develop an innovative closed-loop process to recycle... Read more →

Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and colleagues have developed a process to extract rare earth elements from the scrapped magnets of used hard drives and other sources. They have patented and scaled-up the process in lab demonstrations and are working with ORNL’s licensee Momentum Technologies to scale the... Read more →

Australia-based biotechnology company Circa Group, which produces its bio-based solvent Cyrene from waste cellulose, is participating in a project to develop the first UK industrial scale capability to reclaim and reuse the most valuable components of end-of-life electrical vehicle (EV) batteries. The R2LIB (Reclamation, Remanufacture of Lithium Ion Batteries) project... Read more →

Jaguar Land Rover is testing an innovative recycling process which converts plastic waste into a new premium grade material that could feature on future vehicles. The amount of waste plastic is predicted to exceed 12 million tonnes globally by 2050. Today, not all of this plastic can be recycled for... Read more →

Researchers in Hong Kong have used biodegradable organic methanesulfonic acid (MSA) to leach valuable metals from waste LiCoO2 powders for battery material regeneration. Under the optimal conditions, leaching efficiencies of lithium and cobalt are achieved at nearly ∼100% and ∼100%, respectively. A paper on their work appears in Journal of... Read more →

Volkswagen plans to build one million electric vehicles a year by 2025; given this target, handling battery recycling internally is a priority for cost and environmental reasons. In the long term, Volkswagen wants to recycle about 97% of all raw materials in end-of-life EV battery packs. Today, the level is... Read more →

Researchers at Henan Polytechnic University in China have hydrotreated the oil derived from hydrothermal liquefaction of scrap tires (STO) with waste engine oil (WEO) using five different activated carbon-supported noble metal catalysts—Pd/C, Pt/C, Ru/C, Ir/C, and Rh/C—for the production of liquid fuels. In a paper in the journal Fuel, they... Read more →

Researchers at the University of California San Diego have improved their recycling process that regenerates degraded cathodes from spent lithium-ion batteries. The new process is safer and uses less energy than their previous method (earlier post) in restoring cathodes to their original capacity and cycle performance. Zheng Chen, a professor... Read more →