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Power

Recycled Lithium Batteries As Good As Newly Mined, Study Finds (ieee.org) 60

Posted by BeauHD from the good-as-new dept.
A new study by Wang and a team including researchers from the US Advanced Battery Consortium (USABC), and battery company A123 Systems, [...] shows that batteries with recycled cathodes can be as good as, or even better than those using new state-of-the-art materials. The findings have been published in the journal Joule. IEEE Spectrum reports: The team tested batteries with recycled NMC111 cathodes, the most common flavor of cathode containing a third each of nickel, manganese, and cobalt. The cathodes were made using a patented recycling technique that Battery Resources, a startup Wang co-founded, is now commercializing. The recycled material showed a more porous microscopic structure that is better for lithium ions to slip in and out of. The result: batteries with an energy density similar to those made with commercial cathodes, but which also showed up to 53% longer cycle life.

While the recycled batteries weren't tested in cars, tests were done at industrially relevant scales. The researchers made 11 Ampere-hour industry-standard pouch cells loaded with materials at the same density as EV batteries. Engineers at A123 Systems did most of the testing, Wang says, using a protocol devised by the USABC to meet commercial viability goals for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. He says the results prove that recycled cathode materials are a viable alternative to pristine materials.
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Recycled Lithium Batteries As Good As Newly Mined, Study Finds More

Recycled Lithium Batteries As Good As Newly Mined, Study Finds

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  • So stupid question: (Score:3)

    by Kokuyo ( 549451 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2021 @05:10AM (#61909425) Journal

    Would it make sense to put this recycling step into the actual production process in the first place? Half again as much longevity sounds rather awesome for the environment, no?

    Or did I misunderstand that?

    • Re:So stupid question: (Score:5, Insightful)

      by fazig ( 2909523 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2021 @05:30AM (#61909463)
      Yes, it seemingly does say that you get 53% more charge/discharge cycles out of those recycled cathodes, allegedly due to the cathode material being porous.

      Besides of this being a patented process, that you'd have to license, it's not clarified what costs could be involved to make 'new' cathodes as porous as the recycled ones. Maybe it's going through all those charge and discharge cycles during their 'first life'? If yes, how could you replicate the effect in a more timely and resource friendly (because a lithium battery isn't just the cathode) fashion? Just speculation, because I have nothing to go on.
      But hypothetically it should be possible to do this during manufacture of new cathodes already. Or at least I don't see a reason why not.

      • Equally hypothetically, but since being porous seems to imply it uses less material, perhaps this is an unavoidable loss of material during the recycling process? As in, you can only make 99 recycled cathodes out of 100 old ones?

    • Re:So stupid question: (Score:5, Informative)

      by Luckyo ( 1726890 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2021 @06:04AM (#61909501)

      First and smallest issue is that they analyzed NMC 1:1:1 chemistry. That chemistry is being changed for more modern formulations as fast as we can. Mainstream is rapidly shifting toward 6:1:1 and cutting edge is 8:1:1 today.

      Second, they're merely talking about recycling the cathode. Not the entire battery.

      Third is the cost. We don't actually recycle lithium at all in lithium battery recycling today. This is because it's extremely uneconomical. What we do instead is recycle other metals by effectively burning the lithium and impurities out, and then recycle the far more valuable metals that are left behind. Costs of their procedure are completely unknown and not even mentioned. Likely at least in part because this is a novel cutting edge methodology, and scalability and cost assessments simply haven't been done yet.

      But it does appear to offer a novel way of recycling parts of a NMC 1:1:1 battery cathodes, which means recovering at least some lithium as well. For reference, this is a typical NMC 1:1:1 cathode formulation:
      https://www.msesupplies.com/pr... [msesupplies.com]

      Here's hoping this is scalable and cost effective.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by XXongo ( 3986865 )
        It seems plausible that, although they started on the NMC 1:1:1 composition, the process could be applied to other formulations. They have to start somewhere.

        Agree with your conclusion, "Here's hoping this is scalable and cost effective."

        • It actually makes sense that the batteries entering the recycling stream are going to be a few steps behind the ones they're being recycled into, since batteries are still improving. Something I never thought of since it doesn't apply to recycling other things like aluminum that just are what they are.
      • The solid-state batteries could very well make this entire article purely academic. By the time they do all that cost analysis these solid state might start appearing in cars. Toyota invested big in an anode-free solid state lithium battery that can be fully charged in a matter of minutes.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

          "Lithium air is coming in 20 years", take n where n is a very large number.

          • I see your point about many industries touting vaporware. Micro$oft was renown for manipulating their stocks by announcing shit that was pure vaporware. However Toyota, unlike M$, put $13.6Billion on the line. They even have test vehicles actually on the roads in Japan with them in use. Their first use will be in plug-in HEVs.
            • Yes, but what is the cost of those SS batteries? I have never seen a cost given, just that SSB will replace Lithium-Ion. Problem, if they are too expensive then the use of them will be limited.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by e3m4n ( 947977 )
                agreed. I do see the auto industry as a must-have for the tech. We simply just dont have the infrastructure to snap our fingers and turn every car into an EV right now. Not only are places to charge in the midwest less prolific, those long charging times translates to a lot of problems. There is no question the number of gas pumps exceed the number of charging stations by a factor of 500:1 if not more. And yet even at stations off highways with 16-20 pumps, we see lines to fill up with gas. It takes at most
                • The flip side to that, at least in the majority of the US, is that we can charge at home. I only have a phev that can do 22 miles on electric but we maybe put gas in it once every 2 or 3 months. If I had a car with 300 miles of range, then i'd virtually never need to charge it outside the home and i'd bet i'd spent _less_ time at superchargers than i do at gas stations presently. Obviously that doesn't work as well in all environments, but the US is a really good place for EVs

                  • Re: (Score:2)

                    by e3m4n ( 947977 )
                    I dont do much driving in town. I drive maybe 2-3 miles a day, if that. And since my personal non-vacation car is a vw diesel passat, it barely uses gas anyway with this infrequent travel. Its outside of town that affects me the most. My place of employment, should I need to go there, or to any of their clients, is 2hrs each way by car doing about 85mph. But my biggest concern is vacations. I live 7hrs north of Atlanta so I generally try to get on the road around 3am so that I am driving through atlanta aft

            • Re: So stupid question: (Score:4, Interesting)

              by Luckyo ( 1726890 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2021 @08:36AM (#61909803)

              That sum is peanuts compared to what we spent on lithium air to date. In case you're unaware, in energy sector there are two long standing memes.

              First is that fusion is always fifty years away.

              Second is that lithium air is always twenty years away.

              It's been that way since before I was born. Both technologies are extremely promising in solving energy problems, where first would basically solve the "how to power the grid" problem and second would solve "how to move energy from the grid to applications outside it" problem. Which is why there have been massive investments in both for a very long time.

              And the more we research them, the more problems we find, keeping them perpetually "that amount of years away", which is the best estimate for "when we will find solutions for problems we currently know exist for our implementation of those things".

        • Improvements in the cathode could make batteries last virtually forever.

          New insights on how the cathode ages due to lithium replacing silicon atoms during discharging could lead to improved designs such as the one touted by Dutch company LeydenJar, who use amorphous silicon.

        • I had not heard of this, and went looking for info, but everything I am finding is press releases. Do you have any information about the construction of these batteries, and what makes them different? It seems to me that most batteries could be called solid state, so I am not really sure what they mean when they use that term. I guess liquid flow or lead acid might be able to be labeled as not solid state due to the movement of liquid, but lithium I can't see being labeled that way.

          I am almost picturing

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by e3m4n ( 947977 )
            li-ion has a liquid flammable electrolyte solution, the solid state lithium being developed indicates they are solidifying sulfides to become the electrolyte. here is a press release with a bit of info, https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotli... [nikkei.com] , but given the opportunity for manufacturers to corner the market, we arent seeing the layman explanation of how it works. Toyota has over a 1000 patents on it. I guess if you understood enough to learn based on the very technical patents, its possible. There are at least 1

      • /fp

        https://spectrum.ieee.org/lith... [ieee.org]

        https://www.fortum.com/product... [fortum.com]

        https://www.nature.com/article... [nature.com]

        Why are you again talking about stuff you have no clue about?

        It is cheaper to recycle a lithium ion battery and throw away all the lithium than getting fresh one? How dumb are you actually?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

          FIrst story (copy pasted verbatim):

          >LATER THIS YEAR, the Canadian firm Li-Cycle will begin constructing

          Second story:

          >We are building a new,state-of-the-art hydrometallurgical plant

          Third link:

          >In the waste management hierarchy, re-use is considered preferable to recycling (Fig. 1). Because considerable value is embedded in manufactured lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), it has been suggested that their use should be cascaded through a hierarchy of applications to optimize material use and life-cycle impa

          • What actually did I claim you think is wrong?

            Sorry, you lost me somewhere.

            If you want to FIGHT with me, then make a point.

            Otherwise I ignore your stupid posts. Unless they are so stupid that it hurts.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

              >It is cheaper to recycle a lithium ion battery and throw away all the lithium than getting fresh one? How dumb are you actually?

              Yes it is, and knowing this doesn't make me smart. It makes me knowledgeable. What makes me smart is ability to go and learn about things I don't know, and change my mind as I learn new things.

              Unlike you who are both ignorant and stupid. Ignorant in that you don't even know how we recycle lithium today. And stupid because even after you go to investigate how it's done, and afte

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      It seems like to get the benefit the batteries have to be cycled and then have the cathodes replaced. They could cycle them in say a grid scale battery and then recycle them for use in cars, but I guess right now they not up to that scale.

  • Wang is still in business?

    What are they making now, monitor arms and PC mounting cradles? Keyboards with useless keys?

    • This was my first thought as well, perhaps it's a Mr. Wang? They don't say.

      Also how imaginative can you be to call your company A123? Which makes recycles NMC111 cathodes? Using a protocol devised by the USABC?
  • I have always wondered why recycling would NOT be cheaper than raw materials. Metals are metals, and they melt at different melting points, it should not be too hard to re-separate. You end up with some slag to get rid of. Probably not good to add it into rockwool insulation. So the next step is to use a laser to increase the surface area of the cathode with a pattern or spiral? Or do we have games with the thermal cooling of the cores to alter crystal size? It remains to be seen if increasing the life of

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by XXongo ( 3986865 )

      I have always wondered why recycling would NOT be cheaper than raw materials. Metals are metals, and they melt at different melting points, it should not be too hard to re-separate.

      Once metals are melted together into an alloy, you can only do very limited separation by melting. Mostly when you melt an alloy you get a liquid mixture of the two, unless there's a pretty deep eutectic somewhere in the phase diagram.

  • Please don't say "lithium batteries" (Score:5, Informative)

    by Rei ( 128717 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2021 @05:37AM (#61909473) Homepage

    ... unless you actually mean lithium batteries [google.is] rather than lithium-ion. Because lithium batteries are a specific type of common battery in their own right [wikipedia.org] - non-rechargeable high-density cells. Almost all button cells are lithium batteries, and lithium batteries are now increasingly common as high-end alternatives to the various formats of alkaline cells (AA, AAA, 9V, etc).

    • ... unless you actually mean lithium batteries [google.is] rather than lithium-ion. Because lithium batteries are a specific type of common battery in their own right [wikipedia.org] - non-rechargeable high-density cells. Almost all button cells are lithium batteries, and lithium batteries are now increasingly common as high-end alternatives to the various formats of alkaline cells (AA, AAA, 9V, etc).

      While you are correct that it is good to be accurate in the descriptions, I think it is a lost cause at this point. It seems like I hardly ever see a story about lithium ion batteries that doesn't refer to them as lithium batteries.

    • Down with metal supremacy! (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Your comment reflects deep-seated metal privilege. Lithium-metal batteries are only called "lithium batteries" because they were the first to be commercialized. In the interests of diversity, inclusion, equity, battery identity terminology, and compassionate humanity, we should recognize that the only fair option is to call all lithium-based batteries "lithium batteries". Do not discriminate against materials in some lithium batteries just because they are ions or polymers rather than metal!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Rei ( 128717 )

        One uses lithium in its elemental form (metal). The other uses lithium ions (if there's ever any lithium metal in them, that's a very bad thing!), in the form of lithium salts and free lithium ions (+1) intercalated into the interlayer spaces of the anode and cathode. Hence the former are called "lithium batteries" (or sometimes "lithium metal", though usually not), while the latter are called "lithium-ion batteries".

    • Almost all button cells are lithium batteries

      I think if you actually counted them up, you'd find that almost all button cells are alkaline batteries, because virtually all the stuff that comes out of China with button cells today has alkalines in it. Maybe you meant most styles of button cell are lithiums? That might be true, though irrelevant.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        I think if you actually counted them up, you'd find that almost all button cells are alkaline batteries, because virtually all the stuff that comes out of China with button cells today has alkalines in it. Maybe you meant most styles of button cell are lithiums? That might be true, though irrelevant.

        Actually, button or coin cells come in a lot of chemistries.

        The first letter tells you what kind of chemistry the cell consists of - B (Carbon monoflouride-Lithium), C for standard Manganese dioxide-Lithium, G f

        • Sure, but virtually all of them I'm seeing are C or L... these days, mostly L. I know some of the tiniest ones are more commonly something else, though, especially in hearing aids for people too cheap or broke to get good ones with rechargeable batteries.

  • The Holy Grail of course.. (Score:3)

    by Viol8 ( 599362 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2021 @06:06AM (#61909503) Homepage

    ... is batteries that never wear out and don't need to be recycled. Is there any technology coming close to this at the moment?

    • Have you never seen The Matrix?

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by vivian ( 156520 )

        Those batteries needed recycling too. Hence the chute that Neo went down.

      • I hear the max in use time on those is only 125 years and that is only if you are really careful with them. Given how messy production of new ones are it hardly seems worth it.

    • "The law that entropy always increases holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations - then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation - well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in

      • "The second law is quite precise about where it applies
        Only in a closed system must the entropy count rise
        The earth's not a closed system, it's powered by the sun
        So fuck the damn creationists, Doomsday get my gun
        That, in a nutshell, is what entropy's about
        You're now down with a discount"

        -- Stephen "MC" Hawking, A Brief History of Rhyme (2004)

    • We will always have need of batteries in new forms and need to adjust the placement of the resources we have to hand ... unless you are happy to eternally mine the resources for the next battery (I, for one, would not be keen on this). So as the purposes for the old batteries age out (or get innovated out) then the material should always have need of being recovered.

      Aside from "never say never" if we don't have a recycling method that scales and is economically viable then we will - even in the near-perfect

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Viol8 ( 599362 )

        "Putting it on a shelf to gather dust because it doesn't fit into the new shape of EV would be pretty dumb ... would it not?"

        Perhaps then you'd recycle the chemicals in it. Just a thought. I meant batteries that would last a long time, not forever.

  • I'm confused (Score:5, Informative)

    by Tx ( 96709 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2021 @06:07AM (#61909507) Journal

    At first glance reading the title, you'd assume that it's the Lithium in the battery that has been recycled. But as far as I can tell, it's the cathodes, made of nickel, manganese, and cobalt, that have been recycled here, no mention is made of the Lithium being recycled. The title should really be "Lithium Batteries with Recycled Cathodes As Good As Newly Mined, Study Finds". Now that's fine, TFA does include a quote that the real value of an EV battery is in the cathode, Wang points out, so I'll take his word for it, although I wish they'd put some numbers on it.

    • This is a huge point. As far as I'm aware most lithium recovered from batteries is downcycled to be used as grease and the like. This is because it's hard to get the needed purity of Li from a battery.

      If the purity of lithium is below 99.5 percent, then it is not suitable as raw material for batteries.

      More here: https://batteryuniversity.com/... [batteryuniversity.com]

  • Professor Yan Wang performs study showing recycled batteries being commercialized by Professor Yan Wang are as good or better than new batteries. Seems like they should get independently verified results.

  • New batteries are either blessed with planned obsolescence or are still insufficiently mature technologies to be mandatory.

    How the hell else is one supposed to interpret "same capacity, longer service life"?

  • Recycled Lithium Batteries As Good As Newly Mined

    You can just *mine* batteries? That sounds way easier than mining the raw materials and making batteries...

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