Li-Cycle Corp., the largest lithium-ion battery recycler in North America, will build its third commercial lithium-ion battery recycling facility, to be located in Gilbert, Arizona, within the Phoenix metropolitan area. (Earlier post.) When complete, Li-Cycle’s “Spoke 3” facility will be capable of processing up to 10,000 tonnes of end-of-life batteries... Read more →
Battery Resourcers, a vertically integrated lithium-ion battery recycling and manufacturing company, recently completed a $20-million Series B equity round with financing led by Orbia Ventures, the venture capital arm of the multinational Orbia, and participation from other investors including At One Ventures, TDK Ventures, TRUMPF Venture, Doral Energy-Tech Ventures andJaguar... Read more →
Clean Energy Ventures, a $110-million venture capital firm investing in early-stage climate tech startups, is leading the investments in two battery startups: one in the upstream (Nth Cycle) and one in the downstream (Volexion). Nth Cycle extracts cobalt, nickel and other critical battery metals from discarded batteries, e-waste and mining... Read more →
Rice University scientists and their colleagues at C-Crete Technologies have optimized a process to convert waste from rubber tires into graphene that can, in turn, be used to strengthen concrete. The research led by Rice chemist James Tour and Rouzbeh Shahsavari of C-Crete is detailed in the journal Carbon. Concrete... Read more →
To support the future of green automotive manufacturing and accelerate the UK’s transition to net-zero emission vehicles, the Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC) has guided £9.4 million (US$13 million) in public funding to 22 feasibility studies looking to scale up the industrialization of low-carbon emission vehicle technologies. In the second round... Read more →
Groupe Renault, Veolia and Solvay are partnering to enable the circular economy of EV battery metals in Europe through closed-loop recycling. The existing Veolia and Solvay consortium, created in September 2020 (earlier post), is thus reinforced with Groupe Renault’s position and experience in circular economy and in the life cycle... Read more →
The BMW Group is preparing for a major realignment of its product range from 2025 onwards, based on the Neue Klasse (New Class). The Neue Klasse will be characterized by three key aspects: a completely redefined IT and software architecture; a new generation of high-performance electric drivetrains and batteries; and... Read more →
The University of Birmingham is working with Bentley Motors and others on a three-year research project to deliver a sustainable source of rare earth magnets for electric and hybrid vehicles. The £2.6-million (US$3.6-million) RaRE (Rare-earth Recycling for E-machines) project is funded by the Office for Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV) and... Read more →
Volkswagen Group Components opened the Group’s first plant for recycling electric car batteries in Salzgitter. The aim is the industrialized recovery of valuable raw materials such as lithium, nickel, manganese and cobalt in a closed loop together with aluminum, copper and plastics, achieving a recycling rate of more than 90%... Read more →
Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO, has released a new roadmap on key strategies for creating jobs and reclaiming billions in economic value from plastic, glass, paper and tires currently going into landfill. The National Circular Economy Roadmap found innovation is crucial to realizing Australia’s largest economic gains, which will come... Read more →
The 2021 Nissan Rogue is the company’s first global model built using a “closed-loop” recycling system for aluminum parts. The system helps reduce CO2 emissions compared with using parts made with primary alloys from raw materials. It also promotes the use of materials that don’t rely on newly mined resources,... Read more →
New Flyer Industries Canada ULC and New Flyer of America Inc., subsidiaries of NFI Group Inc., one of the world’s leading independent global bus manufacturers, announced the successful completion of a battery recycling pilot with North America’s largest lithium-ion battery recycler, Li- Cycle Corporation. (Earlier post.) Li-Cycle offers a proprietary,... Read more →
A multitude of supply, demand, cost and sustainability conditions are poised to drive a rapid expansion of the battery recycling industry, more than tripling its capacity by 2030, according to a new analysis by IHS Markit. Large waves of end-of-life batteries are set to begin this year, creating a sizeable... Read more →
The US Tire Manufacturers Association (USTMA), in partnership with The Ray, a nonprofit proving ground for sustainable transportation technologies, announced a research project to assess and compile existing research on the performance, environmental impacts and benefits of using ground tire rubber (GTR) in asphalt. The compiled research will result in... Read more →
Li-Cycle Corp., North America’s largest capacity lithium-ion battery recycling company, announced that its Spoke 2 facility at Eastman Business Park (EBP) in Rochester, New York is now fully operational. The company’s Spoke 2 will produce an intermediate mixed battery material product (“black mass”, typically a mixture of lithium, manganese, cobalt... Read more →
Royal DSM will start a strategic partnership with Neste to enable the production of high performance polymers made from sustainable feedstock. This enables DSM and its customers to reduce the carbon footprint of their own products while supporting the industry to transition to a circular economy. In the new strategic... Read more →
Global automotive Tier 1 manufacturer Motherson Group is collaborating with Israeli cleantech company UBQ Materials. The companies are joining efforts to implement the carbon-negative UBQ thermoplastic (earlier post) into auto parts manufactured by Motherson Group for the automotive industry. UBQ is a patented material converted from 100% unsorted household waste,... Read more →
A large number of components in automobiles are made from plastics; these have to meet exacting safety, heat-resistance and quality requirements. That is why, so far, only petroleum-based materials have been suitable for manufacturing plastic components in automobiles that are subjected to particularly intensive wear. Such materials are not recyclable... Read more →
Eastman and Gruppo Maip, a leading international plastics formulator and compound producer based in Turin, Italy, will partner to formulate new sustainable polymer solutions for automotive interior applications. This will enable an exclusive portfolio of formulations based on Eastman’s Advanced Circular Recycling technology, offering a range of both bio-based and... Read more →
A team from metals research institute SWERIM in Sweden reports on a smelting reduction process to recover cobalt, nickel, manganese and lithium simultaneously from spent Li-ion batteries. A paper on their work is published in the Journal of Power Sources. The proposed pyrometallurgical process is believed to be economical and... Read more →
A team from Shandong University of Technology in China has proposed a new process to recycle anode materials from spent lithium-ion batteries and to reuse the graphite. The graphite and copper foil of the anode are separated by an electrochemical method: copper foil coated graphite is the negative electrode, the... Read more →
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 →