Automakers are racing to produce electric vehicles, yet few firms currently know how to recycle old EV batteries. Experts at the Argonne National Laboratory, a US Department of Energy science and engineering research center in Lemont, Illinois, are inviting the public to listen in as experts explore the challenges – and solutions – of recycling lithium-ion batteries.
How EV batteries can be profitably recycled
Fifteen million EVs are expected to be on US roads by 2030. Eventually, millions of tons of lithium-ion batteries that power those cars will reach their end of life. How can businesses recycle those batteries profitably?
Argonne is offering a free 15-minute webinar on Wednesday, June 29, from 1:00–1:15 p.m. CDT (2:00-2:15 p.m. ET) to discuss this question.
The webinar is called “How can we profitably recycle EV batteries?”
You can sign up for the short webinar here, and it’s open to everyone.
In the webinar, sustainability analyst Qiang Dai will explain the challenges of recycling and discuss possible solutions.
She 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 an Excel-based model that evaluates cost and environmental impacts for the various lifecycle stages of a Li-ion battery.
Qiang and moderator John Harvey, commercialization programs manager at Argonne, will describe how to improve the costs – and greenhouse gas emissions – of recycling batteries.
The US Department of Energy’s ReCell Center is creating new ways to recycle old batteries. One of the best ways is to retain a battery cathode’s structure. This can cut costs by nearly one-third while using almost two-thirds less energy.
In September 2021, ReCell researchers announced that they developed an innovative process for separating the valuable materials that make up the cathode, a battery’s positively charged electrode. Scientists in the Materials Engineering Research Facility at Argonne are scaling up the separation process, paving the way for the large-scale recycling of EV batteries.
Read more: Here’s what the future of battery recycling is going to look like for EV owners
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