Lithium Ion Battery Recycling
Project Goals
Our goal is to develop a clean and affordable low-temperature thermal method to preprocess the end-of-life lithium-ion batteries from consumer electronics batteries.
The approach is to utilize knowledge and matured technologies in the process and thermal industries to solve problems in the battery industry.
- MIT: Dry discharge and life cycle analysis (LCA) and techno-economic analysis (TEA)
- USREL: Black mass separation and facilities for pilot-scale studies
- BYU: Investigating staged decomposition and bridging fundamental research on bench-scale facilities and the pilot-scale demonstration
- Lion Energy: Providing materials and
engineering support - REI: Fire hazard research and the final demonstration, and providing computational fluid dynamics (CFD) based support
Key Technologies
Safe battery draining: A new way to completely drain a battery's power safely without disassembling or using harsh chemicals.
Easier eco-friendly recycling: A low-heat method to pull out "black mass" (the valuable mix of metals inside a battery) using standard machinery that factories already own.
Mobile Recycling: A mobile recycling station that can travel directly to different neighborhoods to process old batteries and educate residents about battery recycling.
Stopping battery fires: Deep research into how batteries heat up, which gives us the exact blueprints needed to prevent dangerous battery fires.