Circular batteries recycling via green chemistry
Spent Li-ion batteries contain valuable metals such as lithium, cobalt, manganese, nickel, aluminium and copper. Some of these metals are not mined in EU and we depend on their import. Thus, we are obligated to recover them from the waste via sustainable recycling.
Traditional recycling of the batteries uses strong chemicals and generates secondary waste. Moreover, some portion of valuable metals is lost in the different steps and is never recovered. Our technology makes recycling smarter and greener since we use organic chemicals. With a use of organic acid we recover most of the lithium and aluminum. Their separation is after that very easy and both metals can be reused. Aluminum is very often recovered as the by-product and never used again. Our technology keeps battery metals (cobalt, nickel and manganese) together and new cathodes will be produced once the research is finalized. We are also investigating methods to regenerate the chemicals to be able to use them again.
