'We can actually find the mechanisms, either using heat or some kind of chemical treatment method, we can put the bookshelf back ,' says Meng. So when chemists like Meng dismantle an Li battery, that's the sort of degradation they see in the structure and materials. After years and years, the bookshelf naturally starts to break down and collapse. Meng says to think of an Li battery like a bookshelf with many layers, and the lithium ions rapidly move across each shelf, cycling back each time to the top shelf – a process called intercalation. The metals in the cathode are the most valuable parts of the battery, and these are what chemists focus on preserving and refurbishing when they dismantle an Li battery. The lithium ions travelling from the anode to the cathode form an electric current.

It also has an anode, or the electrode that releases electrons to the external circuit, made of graphite, a separator and an electrolyte of some kind, which is the medium that transports the electrons between cathode and anode. We can no longer treat the batteries as disposable,' says Shirley Meng, professor in energy technologies at the University of California, San Diego.Ī Li battery cell has a metal cathode, or positive electrode that collects electrons during the electrochemical reaction, made of lithium and some mix of elements that typically include cobalt, nickel, manganese and iron. 'We have to find ways to make it enter what we call a circular lifecycle, because the lithium and the cobalt and nickel take a lot of electricity and a lot of effort to be mined and refined and made into the batteries. Several labs have been working on refining more efficient recycling methods so that, eventually, a standardised, eco-friendly way to recycle Li batteries will be ready to meet skyrocketing demand. If the millions upon millions of Li batteries that will give out after around 10 years or so of use are recycled more efficiently, however, it will help neutralise all that energy expenditure. Also, since large scale, cheap ways to recycle Li batteries are lagging behind, only about 5% of Li batteries are recycled globally, meaning the majority are simply going to waste.īut as demand for EVs escalates, as it's projected to, the impetus to recycle more of them is set to barrel through the battery and motor vehicle industry. As a result, it costs more to recycle them than to mine more lithium to make new ones. 'The current method of simply shredding everything and trying to purify a complex mixture results in expensive processes with low value products,' says Andrew Abbott, a physical chemist at the University of Leicester. And even when Li batteries are broken down this way, the products aren't easy to reuse. But Li batteries are made up of lots of different parts that could explode if they're not disassembled carefully. In your average battery recycling plant, battery parts are shredded down into a powder, and then that powder is either melted (pyrometallurgy) or dissolved in acid (hydrometallurgy). Why environmental lawsuits are on the rise.The latter are typically larger, heavier, much more complex and even dangerous if taken apart wrong. One reason is that the most widely used methods of recycling more traditional batteries, like lead-acid batteries, don't work well with Li batteries. Currently, lithium (Li) ion batteries are those typically used in EVs and the megabatteries used to store energy from renewables, and Li batteries are hard to recycle. While this may sound like the ideal path to sustainable power and road travel, there's one big problem. And grid-scale systems the world over are growing rapidly thanks to advancing battery storage technology. In fact, according to BloombergNEF, two-thirds of the world's passenger vehicle sales will be electric by 2040. Audi's goal is to stop producing them by 2033, and many other major auto companies are following suit. General Motors announced earlier this year that it plans to stop selling gas-powered vehicles by 2035. This electrified future is much closer than you might think. Meanwhile, gas-powered generator sites that dot the horizon may be retrofitted to house massive batteries that could one day power entire cities with renewable energy. The overpowering smell of gas stations will fade away into odourless charge stations where cars can re-juice their batteries as needed. As the quiet whirr of electric vehicles gradually replaces the revs and noxious fumes of internal combustion engines, a number of changes are set to filter through our familiar world.

Lithium battery store