ADVANCED MATERIALS & PROCESSES | OCTOBER 2025 1 1 PROCESS TECHNOLOGY MAKING ADVANCED METALS AT SCALE Foundation Alloy, a company launched by researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is working on a new class of high-performance metal alloys using a production process that does not involve melting raw materials. The company’s solid-state metallurgy technology was developed over many years by former MIT professor Christopher Schuh, FASM, and his colleagues. Foundation Alloy executives say its metal alloys can be made twice as strong as traditional metals with 10 times faster product development. to recycle lithium-ion batteries in a way that is both efficient and sustainable. The process involves a hydro- metallurgical upcycling approach that offers both environmental and performance advantages over other recycling methods. The new technique targets spent mixed nickel-lean (Ni-lean) cathode materials, commonly found in used lithium-ion batteries. Traditional recycling methods struggle to recover these materials effectively and often rely on energy-intensive processes that produce less valuable outputs. In contrast, Wang’s approach recovers more than 92% of the critical metals nickel, cobalt, and manganese and turns them into high-performance cathode powders. Testing shows that batteries made of these recycled materials perform as well as those made from virgin materials, retaining 88% of their capacity after 500 charge cycles and over 85% capacity after 900 cycles in commercial-scale pouch cells. The new process also uses 8.6% less energy than conventional hydrometallurgical methods and significantly reduces carbon emissions—by 13.9% when compared with traditional recycling, slightly more than with direct upcycling. “This work not only addresses the environmental challenges of battery waste but also helps reduce our dependence on mining for critical materials,” says Wang. wpi.edu. The company is already designing metals and shipping demonstration parts to companies making components for aerospace and automotive use. Schuh joined MIT’s faculty in 2002 to study the processing, structure, and properties of metals and other materials. He was named head of the department of materials science and engineering in 2011 before becoming dean of engineering at Northwestern University in 2023. His Foundation Alloy cofounders include CEO Jake Guglin and scientists Jasper Lienhard and Tim Rupert. “Chris wanted to look at metals from different perspectives and make things more economically efficient and higher performance than what’s possible with traditional processes,” says Guglin. “It wasn’t just for academic papers—it was about making new methods that would be valuable for the industrial world.” Their first challenge was scaling up. Now, the company starts with a customer’s specific requirements and decides on a precise blend of powdered raw materials. Next it uses an industrial mixer to create a metal powder that is homogenous down to the atomic level. From there, the material can be solidified using methods like metal injection molding, pressing, or 3D printing. The final step is an advanced sintering process in a furnace that requires an order of magnitude less heat than traditional methods and allows more control over the microstructure of finished parts. mit.edu. RECYCLING LITHIUM-ION BATTERIES Researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), led by Professor Yan Wang, developed a scalable method The DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, Ill., and The University of Texas at Dallas signed a memorandum of understanding to advance research in battery science. Argonne and UT Dallas will work toward an abundant supply of domestic critical materials vital to battery manufacturing and energy security. anl.gov. BRIEF Examples of components made from high-performance metals developed by Christopher Schuh’s team. Courtesy of Foundation Alloy. Yan Wang at work in his lab where he developed an upcycling process for spent lithium-ion battery materials. Courtesy of WPI.
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