Researchers at Idaho National Laboratory have developed a dimethyl ether-driven fractional crystallization process for separating rare earth elements and transition metals. The process has been successfully applied in the treatment of rare earth element-bearing permanent magnet leachates as an atom-efficient, reagent-free separation method. An open-access paper on their work is... Read more →

GM Ventures, the automaker’s investment arm, has made a strategic investment in Lithion Recycling’s Series A financing round, supporting a new GM-Lithion strategic partnership agreement to pursue a circular battery ecosystem using Lithion’s advanced battery recycling technology. This collaboration between GM and Lithion will focus on: Validation of Lithion’s recovered... Read more →

In a first for the automotive industry, the models of the NEUE KLASSE due to be launched from 2025 onwards will feature trim parts made of plastic the raw material of which contains around 30% recycled fishing nets and ropes. This raw material is proactively sourced at ports all around... Read more →

Mercedes-Benz’ battery recycling subsidiary Licular GmbH—founded in 2021—is heading the consortium for LIBinfinity, a €17-million battery-recycling project funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK). LIBinfinity focuses on a holistic concept for recycling materials of lithium-ion batteries using a mechanico-hydrometallurgical process without energy-intensive process steps.... Read more →

Teijin Frontier, the Teijin Group’s fibers and products converting company, has developed an eco-friendly tire cord made from an adhesive that does not contain resorcinol formaldehyde (RF), which is harmful to the human body and the environment, and also incorporates a low-environmental impact chemically recycled polyester fiber for rubber reinforcement.... Read more →

Demand for lithium-ion batteries is set to grow six-fold by 2032, according to Benchmark. Accordingly, the world needs more than 300 new mines to be built by 2035 if raw material supply is to keep up with this demand, according to a new analysis by Benchmark. However, recycling could help... Read more →

Cirba Solutions, a recycled battery management and materials company, will form a joint venture with 6K Inc., a producer of sustainable advanced materials for additive manufacturing and energy storage via the UniMelt plasma system, to produce recycled battery cathode material, thereby closing the loop in the management of lithium-ion batteries.... Read more →

To reduce natural resource usage and its trucks’ environmental impact, Renault Trucks (part of the Volvo Group) is taking steps to transition its industrial operations to a circular-economy approach. Renault Trucks’ new Used Parts Factory is the logical next step after the used trucks repurposing and remanufacturing operations conducted respectively... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) Manufacturing & Energy Supply Chains Office in collaboration with the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Office issued a Request for Information (RFI) (DE-FOA-0002833) to help guide the implementation of $335 million in investments from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act for lithium-ion battery recycling... Read more →

BASF and Sulzer Chemtech (GTC Technology) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the goal of advancing technologies for renewable fuels and chemically recycled plastics that will further expand the partners’ portfolio of sustainable solutions. The companies agreed to enter a strategic partnership to reduce the carbon intensity of renewable... Read more →

A new study by The University of South Australia (UniSA) has tested and verified the structural integrity of walls constructed from tires packed with earth, with the results potentially providing new opportunities for the reuse of end-of-life tires in the construction industry. Tire waste represents a major sustainability challenge globally,... Read more →

Researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) have developed a sustainable lithium recovery process which can selectively leach and recover lithium with formic acid before recycling valuable metals. With their method, lithium can be 99.8% recovered from layered oxide cathode materials with 99.994% purity. In addition, this lithium recovery process is... Read more →

A team from Central South University in China has developed a new type of deep eutectic solvent (DES) that can efficiently leach metal elements from spent Ni-Co-Mn lithium-ion batteries (LNCM). The leaching rates of Ni, Co, Mn, and Li can all reach 99% under the conditions of T=140°C, t=10 min... Read more →

Ascend Elements plans to invest $310 million in Phase 1—and up to $1 billion over several possible phases—to build a sustainable lithium-ion battery materials facility in Hopkinsville, Ky., with groundbreaking expected in Q4 2022. The manufacturing facility, known as “Apex 1”, will be home to the company’s Hydro-to-Cathode direct precursor... Read more →

American Battery Technology Company (ABTC), a US-based critical battery materials company that is commercializing both its primary minerals manufacturing and secondary minerals lithium-ion battery recycling technologies (earlier post), is establishing new laboratories at its Research Development Center focused on domestically and sustainably sourced battery metals extraction and qualification processes. The... Read more →

A team from Central South University, Changsha, China and Shaanxi University of Science & Technology, Xi’an, China, has proposed a mechanochemistry-based process to recover metals from waste cathode materials of LiCoO2 (LCO) and LiFePO4 (LFP) in spent Li-ion batteries (LIBs). An open-access paper on the approach is published in the... Read more →

Volkswagen Group of America, Inc. (VWGoA) and Redwood Materials, Inc. (Redwood) will collaborate to create a supply chain to recycle Volkswagen and Audi electric vehicle batteries in the United States, with the goal of providing accessible and more sustainable electric mobility for American drivers. The collaboration advances Volkswagen Group of... Read more →

SiTration, an MIT spinoff developing new separation processes for materials extraction, raised $2.35 million in pre-seed funding led by Azolla Ventures with participation from the MIT-affiliated E14 Fund. The funding will enable SiTration to accelerate hiring and ramp up development of its technology for the recovery of critical materials in... Read more →

Teijin and Fujitsu launched a joint project to realize a blockchain-based commercial platform for enhancing the environmental value of recycled materials for manufacturers. The collaboration will promote environmentally conscious design by leveraging Teijin’s Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) Calculation Method for measuring the environmental impact of manufacturing processes across the value... Read more →

Graphmatech, Graphenea, and Northvolt have succeeded in up-cycling end-of-life EV batteries into graphene oxide at industrial pilot scale. This breakthrough uses the material left after Northvolt has extracted valuable metals and minerals. Until now, that remaining material has been waste. The upcycling of graphene oxide from recycled batteries represents a... Read more →

Toyota Motor North America has embarked on a mission to create a sustainable, closed-loop battery ecosystem for its electrified powertrains. This focuses not only on the collection, testing and recycling of batteries into raw materials to create a sustainable supply chain, but also aims to develop second-life opportunities for remanufactured... Read more →

BASF will build a commercial-scale battery recycling black mass plant in Schwarzheide, Germany. The plant will have an annual processing capacity of 15,000 tons of EV batteries and production scrap. This investment strengthens BASF’s cathode active materials (CAM) production and recycling hub in Schwarzheide. The site is an ideal location... Read more →

DARPA has selected multiple teams of university researchers for the Recycling at the Point of Disposal (RPOD) program. RPOD will evaluate the technical feasibility of recovering multiple low-volume fraction critical elements present in end-of-life electronics hardware (e-waste). The program seeks to develop small-footprint platforms with greatly reduced energy consumption and... Read more →

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is developing best practices with respect to the collection of batteries to be recycled, as well as establishing a program to promote battery recycling through the development of voluntary labeling guidelines for batteries and communication materials for battery producers and consumers as directed by... Read more →

The HVBatCycle research consortium—a partnership of industrial and scientific communities—has the goal of keeping cathode metals, electrolyte and graphite permanently in a closed material cycle (closed loop). Under the leadership of the Volkswagen Group, TANIOBIS GmbH, J. Schmalz GmbH and Viscom AG are working together with researchers from RWTH Aachen... Read more →

Argonne National Laboratory will host a public webinar on the challenges of recycling Li-ion batteries and possible solutions. Qiang Dai, sustainability analyst at Argonne, will show how anyone can measure the costs of recycling lithium-ion batteries and how the process affects the environment with Argonne’s free EverBatt tool. EverBatt is... Read more →

LG Chem will establish a recycling and precursor joint venture with KEMCO, a subsidiary of Korea Zinc Co., Ltd., to strengthen its battery material value chain. Precursors in this application context are raw material for cathodes manufactured by combining nickel, cobalt, manganese, aluminum, etc.; prescursors account for approximately 70% of... Read more →

New research has found that mixing rubber from used tires with bitumen can halve the rate of sun damage to roads. Researchers at RMIT University in Australia collaborated with Tyre Stewardship Australia (TSA) to discover the ideal blend that is both UV-resistant and withstands traffic loads, with the potential to... Read more →

The BMW Brilliance Automotive joint venture (BBA) has established a closed loop for reuse of the raw materials nickel, lithium and cobalt from high-voltage batteries that are no longer suitable for use in electric vehicles. The batteries come from fully and partially-electric development vehicles, test systems and production rejects and,... Read more →

Rice University chemists working with researchers at the Ford Motor Company are turning plastic parts from end-of-life vehicles into graphene via the university’s flash Joule heating process (earlier post). The Rice lab of chemist James Tour introduced flash Joule heating in 2020 to convert coal, petroleum coke and trash into... Read more →

Glencore, one of the world’s largest global diversified natural resource companies, has established a strategic partnership with Li-Cycle Holdings, a leading lithium-ion battery recycler in North America. Glencore will subscribe for convertible debt in Li-Cycle and Li-Cycle will become a preferred partner for Glencore in the lithium-ion battery recycling sector.... Read more →

Faulty car windows often go in the recycling bin when the cracked part cannot be fixed. A closed material circuit does not yet exist for damaged car glass. This is where Audi and its partner companies Reiling Glas Recycling, Saint-Gobain Glass, and Saint-Gobain Sekurit are now doing pioneering work as... Read more →

Geomega Resources Inc., a developer of clean technologies for the mining, refining, and recycling of rare earths and other critical materials, announced that Innord Inc., its wholly owned subsidiary, has signed a term sheet with Rio Tinto to enter into a development agreement for Bauxite Residues Iron Phase Product. As... Read more →

Li-Cycle Holdings Corp. completed commercial agreements with LG Energy Solution, Ltd. for the supply of manufacturing scrap for recycling and with each of LG Energy Solution (LGES) and LG Chem, Ltd. (LGC) for the sale of nickel sulfate from Li-Cycle’s Rochester Hub. With the execution of these agreements, LGC and... Read more →

Li-Cycle has selected Veolia Water Technologies as a partner for its lithium-ion battery recycling plant in Rochester, New York. The facility will utilize Veolia’s HPD evaporation and crystallization technology to process recycled lithium-ion battery materials. Veolia’s HPD crystallization technology is key in a final stage of the battery recycling process... Read more →

Bridgestone Americas is partnering with LanzaTech to address end-of-life tire waste. The two companies will co-develop the first dedicated end-of-life tire recycling process leveraging LanzaTech’s proprietary CCT (Carbon Capture and Transformation) technology, creating a pathway toward tire material circularity and the decarbonization of new tire production. According to the Tire... Read more →

The BMW Group will use cast aluminum wheels produced with 100% green power for its BMW and MINI brands from 2024 onwards. For the BMW Group, this is another step towards its goal of creating the most sustainable supply chain in the automotive industry. The transition applies, in particular, to... Read more →

An EIT RawMaterials-supported vanadium recovery joint venture in Finland between two Australian project development companies—Critical Metals Ltd and Neometals Ltd—plans to increase high-purity vanadium production in Europe for use in grid-scale vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFBs), specialty steel applications and next-generation lithium vanadium cells. The Vanadium Recovery Project (VRP) is... Read more →

BASF has signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Zhejiang REEF Technology Co., Ltd. to develop state-of-the-art recyclate formulations for applications used in the automotive, packaging and consumer industries. The plastics industry is seeking ways to incorporate higher content of recycled polymeric material in all major applications to meet sustainability goals,... Read more →

The cobalt, manganese and nickel found in battery cathodes are expensive to mine; scientists have for years sought a way to create new batteries from spent ones. When a car battery reaches the end of its service life, it is collected, dismantled and shredded. The shredded material is processed to... Read more →

Canada-based Rock Tech Lithium will collaborate with the Fraunhofer Institute for Environmental, Safety and Energy Technology UMSICHT and Circulor, the UK-based sustainable supply chain traceability provider, to achieve comprehensive CO2 transparency of Rock Tech’s lithium value chain—from the raw material, spodumene, to the end product, lithium hydroxide. Rock Tech, which... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) announced up to $48 million in funding for a new Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) program—Converting UNF Radioisotopes Into Energy (CURIE)—that will support the deployment of Advanced Nuclear Reactor (AR) technology by providing safe and sustainable domestic fuel stocks. (DE-FOA-0002691) The US has accumulated... Read more →

A team of researchers from the Critical Materials Institute (CMI), a US Department of Energy Innovation Hub led by the Ames Laboratory, developed a novel way to extract rare earth elements from the high-powered magnets in electronic waste (earlier post). Recently, TdVib LLC, a company based out of Boone, Iowa,... Read more →

Teijin Limited has agreed to form a business alliance with Fuji Design Co., Ltd., a Japanese manufacturer of recycled carbon fibers to establish a business structure for the production, supply and commercialization of carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) products made from recycled carbon fibers using a low environmental impact process.... Read more →

Redwood Materials, founded by Tesla co-founder and former CTO JB Straubel (earlier post), is launching the most comprehensive electric vehicle battery recycling program, beginning in California, to establish efficient, safe and effective recovery pathways for end-of-life hybrid and electric vehicle battery packs. Ford Motor Company and Volvo Cars are the... Read more →

Ascend Elements, a vertically integrated lithium-ion battery recycling and engineered materials company and Koura, an Orbia business and one of the world’s largest producers of fluoroproducts and technologies, launched a proprietary process technology yielding battery-grade graphite material from spent lithium-ion batteries. Orbia is serving as a development partner to Ascend... Read more →

Virgin Group and chemical conversion technology company Agilyx (earlier post) are forming a strategic partnership to research and develop lower carbon fuel facilities to help address plastic pollution and the global transition to net zero. Virgin Group and Agilyx aim to reuse plastic waste to produce synthetic crude oil that... Read more →

Umicore, a global materials technology group, is a pioneer in the recycling of rechargeable batteries; its battery recycling plant in Hoboken, Belgium, has an annual capacity of 7,000 tons of lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries and battery production scrap, the equivalent of 35,000 electric vehicle (EV) batteries. The plant started operations in... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) has issued two notices of intent to provide a total of $2.91 billion to boost production of the advanced batteries that are critical to rapidly growing clean energy industries of the future, including electric vehicles and energy storage. DOE intends to fund battery materials... Read more →

BASF and Heraeus have agreed to form a joint venture (BASF: 50%; Heraeus: 50%) to recover precious metals from spent automotive catalysts. The new company, named BASF HERAEUS (China) Metal Resource Co., Ltd will be set up in Pinghu, China. The founding of the legal entity is targeted in Q1... Read more →