Current (!) projections of the resources that will be required if electric vehicles are mandated imply the need for 50-fold growth in lithium supplies. And that is not going to happen at the mine-head.
From the electricity mavens at IEEE Spectrum, October 15:
Cathodes made with novel direct-recycling beat commercial materials
Lithium-ion batteries, with their use of riskily mined metals, tarnish the green image of EVs. Recycling to recover those valuable metals would minimize the social and environmental impact of mining, keep millions of tons of batteries from landfills, and cut the energy use and emissions created from making batteries.
But while the EV battery recycling industry is starting to take off, getting carmakers to use recycled materials remains a hard sell. "In general, people's impression is that recycled material is not as good as virgin material," says Yan Wang, a professor of mechanical engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. "Battery companies still hesitate to use recycled material in their batteries."
A new study by Wang and a team including researchers from the US Advanced Battery Consortium (USABC), and battery company A123 Systems, shows that battery and carmakers needn't worry. The results, published in the journal Joule, shows that batteries with recycled cathodes can be as good as, or even better than those using new state-of-the-art materials.
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....
....MUCH MORE
After A123's bankruptcy in 2012 I had pretty much forgotten about them, yet here they are in their private, LLC, configuration.
- "Urban mining for metals flashes forward"
- Watch Out Umicore: Ford partners with battery recycling and materials startup Redwood Materials
- "Electric Cars’ Looming Recycling Problem"
- UPDATED—"Automakers Need to Start Worrying About the Batteries Lurking in Older Electric Vehicles" (plus some M&A speculation from Markets Live)
- "Renault batteries find ‘megawatt-scale’ 2nd life use in Belgium"
