A team from the Korean government-funded research institute The Institute for Basic Science has developed a one-pot liquid extraction process that uses rotating, concentric-liquid reactors to stir, separate, and capture metal ions from spent lithium-ion batteries. A paper on their work appears in the journal Advanced Materials. Efficient recycling of... Read more →

The BMW Group is heading up a new project that explores the circular economy in automotive manufacturing. The company is working with representatives from the recycling industry, commodity processors and academia to work on ways of improving the quality of secondary raw materials obtained from recycling end-of-life vehicles. With €6.4... Read more →

UK-based Altilium Metals (earlier post) has successfully produced cathode active materials (CAM) recovered from end-of-life EV battery scrap at its recycling demonstration line in Devon. The first samples have been delivered to Imperial College London, where the materials will be analyzed under a joint research programme partly funded by the... Read more →

The Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has been developing the Shear Assisted Processing and Extrusion (ShAPE) process (earlier post) to enable more cost- and energy-efficient production of high-strength structures from metals and metal alloys for a number of years, with application to a range of different metals. Now,... Read more →

Li-Cycle Holdings and VinES Energy Solutions, a member of Vietnam-based Vingroup, signed a definitive agreement for a long-term recycling relationship. From 2024, Li-Cycle will become VinES’ strategic and preferred recycling partner for VinES’ Vietnamese-sourced battery materials. Consistent with Li-Cycle’s strategy for growing recycling capacity in conjunction with customer demand, the... Read more →

Arnold Magnetic Technologies, a subsidiary of Compass Diversified and global manufacturer of high-performance magnets and more for mission critical applications, is partnering with Cyclic Materials, a pioneer in developing more sustainable domestic supply chains for rare earth elements. Arnold and Cyclic will work together to develop a rare earth recycling... Read more →

A team from Technische Universität Darmstadt, Universität Stuttgart, Justus Liebig Universität Gießen, and Universität des Saarlandes have developed a two-step recycling approach using citric acid as the leaching agent to separate and recover the individual components of an all-solid state Li-ion battery cell comprising a Li4Ti5O12 (LTO) anode, Li6.5La3Zr1.5Ta0.5O12 (LLZTO)... Read more →

In Germany, a project led by electrolyte company Elyte Innovations GmbH is pursuing the recovery of the non-metallic components—including lithium salts, solvents and electrolyte additives—from spent lithium-ion batteries. Named SWELL (Stoffliche Wiederverwertung von Elektrolyt-Leitsalzen und-Lösungsmitteln / Recovery of Electrolyte Salts and Solvents), the project is funded by the German Federal... Read more →

Bridgestone Americas has produced a run of demonstration tires made with 75% recycled and renewable materials (38% renewable, 37% recycled content), including synthetic rubber made with recycled plastics and natural rubber harvested from hevea and guayule grown domestically. The company has completed production of 200 demonstration tires and is pursuing... Read more →

Starting on 22 April (Earth Day), Volkswagen of America and Redwood Materials will offer consumers a convenient way to recycle rechargeable devices or lithium-ion batteries. Participating Volkswagen dealerships will offer Redwood bins for easy and safe drop off of rechargeable batteries and consumer devices, including cell phones, laptops, tablets, cordless... Read more →

Cirba Solutions announced today a phase I investment of more than $300 million into a lithium-ion electric vehicle (EV) battery recycling facility in South Carolina. With more than 30 years of experience, Cirba Solutions has paved the way for a sustainable closed-loop battery supply chain. The company is investing more... Read more →

Altilium Metals, a UK clean energy group, plans to accelerate the development of the UK’s largest EV battery recycling plant, following completion of a six-month feasibility study, funded partly by the UK government’s Automotive Transformation Fund, and the first successful demonstration of its proprietary technology at its newly opened analytical... Read more →

Aqua Metals has successfully recovered high-purity nickel from lithium battery black mass using its proprietary Li AquaRefining process, utilizing electricity, and without a polluting smelter or the significant chemical waste typical in recycling. (Earlier post.) The company’s unique solution for recovering all valuable metals in lithium battery recycling supports a... Read more →

Electra Battery Materials Corporation has successfully recovered lithium in its black mass recycling trial being conducted at its refinery north of Toronto. (Earlier post.) Electra said that the recovery and subsequent production of a technical-grade lithium carbonate product in a plant-scale setting validates its proprietary hydrometallurgical process and efforts to... Read more →

Researchers from Nanchang Hangkong University in China have developed a direct electro-oxidation method for lithium leaching from spent ternary lithium-ion batteries (T-LIBs) (Li0.8Ni0.6Co0.2Mn0.2O2). In a paper in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology they report that 95.02% of Li in the spent T-LIBs was leached under 2.5 V in... Read more →

American Battery Technology Company, a critical battery materials company that is commercializing both its primary minerals manufacturing (earlier post) and secondary minerals lithium-ion battery recycling technologies (earlier post), entered into agreements for the purchase of a move-in-ready, commercial-scale battery recycling facility located in the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center (TRIC) in McCarran,... Read more →

A newly approved standard from ASTM International’s recovered carbon black committee (D36) provides a test that will help to differentiate products and provide a quality control tool for producers and users. Recovered carbon black (rCB) is a recycled product made from end-of-life tires. Recovered carbon black can reduce the tire... Read more →

RecycLiCo Battery Materials has achieved another milestone in its demo plant testing efforts, successfully producing bulk quantities of battery-grade lithium carbonate from an industrial feed of cathode scrap. The demo plant has undergone thousands of person-hours over several months which has delivered high-quality battery materials and operational data for continued... Read more →

Mercedes-Benz held its groundbreaking ceremony for a new battery recycling factory in Kuppenheim, Germany, which will help reduce resource consumption and establishing closed-loop recycling of battery raw materials. Mercedes-Benz lays the foundation for a sustainable battery recycling factory in Kuppenheim in southern Germany. The first stage of the plant—mechanical dismantling... Read more →

Li-Cycle Holdings Corp. and the US Department of Energy (DOE) Loan Programs Office (LPO), through its Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing (ATVM) program, have entered into a conditional commitment for a $375-million loan. The conditional commitment follows DOE technical, market, financial and legal due diligence and marks another significant milestone endorsing... Read more →

Honda Motor has reached a basic agreement with Ascend Elements, a US-based company with expertise in technologies for recycling of battery resources. (Earlier post.) The companies intend to collaborate toward stable procurement of resources from recycled lithium-ion batteries in North America necessary for Honda electrified vehicles, including EVs. Through this... Read more →

The new MINI Cooper SE Convertible (combined power consumption: 17.2kWh/100 km according to WLTP) (earlier post) will be the first series model to be produced with alloy wheels that are made entirely from recycled aluminum. The first use of 100% secondary aluminum for light-alloy wheels on a series-production vehicle is... Read more →

BASF, a leading battery materials producer, has entered into a long-term collaboration agreement with Tenova Advanced Technologies (TAT) of Yokneam, Israel, for its battery recycling prototype plant in Schwarzheide, Germany. Both companies agreed to optimize jointly the hydrometallurgical recycling process, leveraging TAT’s novel process for the recovery and production of... Read more →

Aqua Metals has recovered high-purity lithium hydroxide (LiOH) from lithium-ion battery black mass at the company’s Li AquaRefining recycling facility located at the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center (TRIC). (Earlier post.) The production and availability of the first recycled lithium hydroxide at scale will help close the supply chain loop for critical... Read more →

Leading lead battery recycler Ecobat is building its third lithium-ion battery recycling facility and its first in North America. The new facility in Casa Grande, Arizona will initially produce 10,000 estimated tons of recycled material per year, with plans to expand capacity to satisfy the increasing need to recycle lithium-ion... Read more →

A team of researchers from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, University of Sydney, University of Alberta, The University of Queensland, and Yale University have used the tailored deep eutectic solvent (DES) choline chloride–formic acid (ChCl–FA) to extract critical metals from mixed NCM and LFP cathode materials with high selectivity and... Read more →

Redwood Materials has received conditional commitment for a $2-billion loan from the DOE's Loan Program Office. Redwood will draw upon this milestone-based financing in tranches that support phased construction and allows the company to unlock funding as it accelerates the construction and expansion of its first battery materials campus. Once... Read more →

MagREEsource, a 2020 spin-off of the CNRS-Institut Néel that is commercializing processes for recycling rare-earth magnets and then remanufacturing new magnets from the recycled powders, has secured €5 million in financing and has opened its first pilot facility in Grenoble, with a capacity of 50 tons by 2023. This first... Read more →

Asahi Kasei, a diversified Japanese multinational company, has developed a new technology for recycling carbon fiber plastic compounds together with the National Institute of Technology, Kitakyushu College and Tokyo University of Science. Carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP) are highly attractive for various industries in demanding application fields due to their... Read more →

Fujitsu and Teijin launched a joint project running from January to March 2023 to enhance the environmental value of recycled resources in the production of bicycle frames together with V Frames GmbH, a German manufacturer and distributor of carbon fiber reinforced plastic bicycle frames, and E Bike Advanced Technologies GmbH,... Read more →

RecycLiCo Battery Materials (formerly American Manganese), has delivered samples of its battery-grade lithium carbonate and lithium hydroxide to battery manufacturers in Japan and South Korea. The companies, which are among the top manufacturers in the region, will conduct a technical review of the lithium products and explore potential business partnership... Read more →

Aqua Metals has successfully recovered critical battery metal from spent lithium-ion batteries at production scale by electroplating. The company’s pilot Li AquaRefining system has demonstrated the ability to remove impurities and trace metals from tons of recycled lithium battery black mass and then selectively recover pure metal using electricity instead... Read more →

Used and damaged cars are often disposed of via energy-intensive scrapping processes—even when many of their parts are still fully functional. In the EKODA project, Fraunhofer researchers are developing an alternative. First, they examine each component in a complex testing procedure. Then they use an evaluation system to generate recommendations... Read more →

Researchers at The Ohio State University have developed a novel process to clean coal mine drainage and extract rare-earth elements from it. In an open-access paper in the journal Environmental Engineering Science, the team reports that the process successfully cleaned clean coal mine drainage while producing rare-earth elements in samples... Read more →

NEO Battery Materials, a developer of silicon anode materials, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with an Asia-based producer of high-purity silicon powder through recycling silicon by-product waste from solar photovoltaic cell and semiconductor manufacturing. The recycler will remain confidential until officially disclosed. The purpose is to enhance the price... Read more →

Researchers from The University of Birmingham in the UK have demonstrated that the direct reuse of aluminum and copper current collectors from spent lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) is possible. An open-access paper on their study is published in the RSC journal Green Chemistry. Zhu et al. The ever-increasing number of spent... Read more →

Electra Battery Materials (earlier post) launched a demonstration plant designed to recover and recycle high-value elements found in lithium-ion batteries, including nickel, cobalt, lithium, copper, and graphite at its refinery complex north of Toronto. With the outlook for electric vehicle adoption in North America becoming increasingly bullish as a result... Read more →

LG Chem entered an equity investment agreement worth 24 billion KRW (US$18.6 million) with the waste battery recycling company, Jae Young Tech. Based on this equity investment, the two companies plan to establish a battery recycling joint venture in North America by the end of 2023. LG Chem will lead... Read more →

Rice University scientists led by chemist James Tour have used an ultrafast flash recycling method to regenerate the graphite anode from spent Li-ion batteries and recover valuable battery metal resources. Tour is the T.T. and W.F. Chao Chair in Chemistry and a professor of materials science and nanoengineering; Tour introduced... Read more →

The Dürr Group is delivering technology for the sustainable manufacture of lithium-ion batteries to be used in CATL’s plant that is currently being built in Arnstadt, Germany. The order comprises several systems based on an eco-friendly process for solvent recovery in production. This prevents tens of thousands of tons of... Read more →

Redwood Materials will build its next Battery Materials Campus just outside of Charleston, South Carolina. At Camp Hall in Berkeley County, Redwood will recycle, refine and manufacture anode and cathode components on more than 600 acres, creating more than 1,500 jobs and investing $3.5 billion in the local community. Eventually,... Read more →

ACE Green Recycling (ACE), a global recycling technology and supply chain platform, and diversified mining firm Glencore plc will enter a long-term supply agreement for recycled lead as well as key battery-metal-based end products from recycled lithium-ion batteries. This strategic partnership will help create a circular supply chain on a... Read more →

Synova, SABIC Global Technologies B.V., an affiliate of Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC), and Technip Energies recently signed a Joint Development and Cooperation Agreement to collaborate on the development and realization of a commercial plant which will produce olefins and aromatics from plastic waste. The plant will use a combined... Read more →

Constellium SE is leading a new consortium of automakers and suppliers to develop lower carbon, lower cost aluminum extrusion alloys. Sponsored by a grant from the UK’s Advanced Propulsion Center (APC), the £10-million (US$12.3-million) CirConAl (Circular and Constant aluminum) project aims to maximize the use of post-consumer scrap in a... Read more →

LanzaTech and Sumitomo Riko Company have entered into a joint-development agreement to reuse rubber, resin and urethane waste for the production of a key chemical intermediate, isoprene. Isoprene is produced by plants, and along with its polymers, is the main component of natural rubber. Natural rubber is widely regarded as... Read more →

Norway-based research organization SINTEF is currently heading a major EU-funded project called HARARE, which aims to use hydrogen to recover copper and aluminum from copper slag and bauxite residues (red muds), respectively. HARARE stands for “Hydrogen As the Reducing Agent in the REcovery of metals and minerals from metallurgical waste”.... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) announced $73.9 million in funding for 10 projects to advance technologies and processes for electric vehicle (EV) battery recycling and reuse. With demand for critical battery minerals, such as lithium and graphite, projected to increase by as much as 4,000% in the coming decades,... Read more →

RecycLiCo Battery Materials (formerly American Manganese), a battery materials company focused on the development of novel and environmentally friendly lithium-ion battery recycling and upcycling technologies, and its R&D partner Kemetco Research provided an operational update on the RecycLiCo hydrometallurgical demonstration plant in Vancouver, Canada. Since its commissioning earlier this year,... Read more →

Cirba Solutions (previously Retriev Solutions, LLC) has extended a prior agreement with General Motors (GM) to recycle electric vehicle (EV) lithium-ion battery and cell scrap generated by manufacturing and research at select GM facilities through 2024. With more than a million pounds of batteries already recycled by GM, this program... Read more →

MAN Truck & Bus is working on the post-usage strategy for its electric-vehicle batteries. The aim is to extend the life of the batteries in the first step and, if this is no longer possible, to recycle the raw materials contained in them. In the truck sector, MAN Truck &... Read more →