ADVANCED MATERIALS & PROCESSES | JULY/AUGUST 2023 19 The booming global market for electric vehicles (EVs) has led to a rapid increase of spent lithium- ion batteries. In a recent market report by IDTechX, it was predicted that the amount of retired end-of-life (EOL) batteries from EVs will reach 7.8 million tonnes, and the value of the global lithium-ion battery market will be worth $31 billion annually by 2040[1]. Exploring a sustainable and cost-effective method for recycling EOL batteries has become an urgent mission to reduce the environmental burden of disposing an increasing volume of EOL batteries while reaping the benefits of recovering economically costly or strategically significant constituent materials. SOURCING BATTERY MATERIALS The main materials that are sourced for lithium-ion battery (LIB) electrodes (anodes and cathodes) include graphite, lithium, nickel, cobalt, and manganese. The cost of these materials has fluctuated significantly in the past decade, causing market instability and supply chain reliability to become major concerns for the battery manufacturing industry. Figure 1 demonstrates how the production of these key battery manufacturing precursors is dominated by only a few countries. This includes 65% of all graphite being produced in China, 54% of all cobalt being produced in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and 41% of all lithium being produced in Australia[2]. Establishing critical battery material recycling in the United States could have a high regional impact, RECYCLING ELECTRIC VEHICLE BATTERIES: OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES A surge in electric vehicle production is ushering in a new era of research on the best methods to recycle used lithium-ion batteries. Jaclyn Coyle, Kae Fink, Andrew Colclasure, and Matthew Keyser National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, Colorado Fig. 1 – Share of global production of key nickel manganese cobalt (NMC) materials in 2016, concentrated in only 32 countries[2].
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTYyMzk3NQ==