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Group led by Volkswagen recycles EV batteries over and over again


Electric vehicle (EV) battery recycling isn’t really news anymore, but recycled battery recycling certainly is.

Volkswagen Group and several other industrial and scientific companies are investigating the feasibility of recycle the battery many times.

Dubbed Research company HVBatCycle, the team plans to spend three years researching and developing the “required processes” needed to scale this closed-loop battery recycling – or is it recycling? – progress.

All will be funded by the German federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Action.

The aim of the HVBatCycle project is to permanently keep the cathode metals, electrolytes and graphite in a closed materials cycle. This means that these materials will continue to be extracted from the old battery and fed into the new battery.

It is not yet known whether recycling the battery’s material multiple times affects its performance; Volkswagen AG says that ending the cycle is not as easy as one might think.

For an efficient, ecologically and economically sound recycling system, all processes need to be coordinated to produce secondary materials of the right quality.

The most obvious benefit of this closed-loop recycling method is that it reduces the need to mine the soil material needed to produce new batteries.

The team seems to be focusing on the mechanical-hydrometallurgical recycling process, which uses aqueous solutions to recover metals for ores and concentrates.

In particular, the team will treat what they call “black mass,” consisting of graphite and battery metal, with water and chemical solvents.

It will investigate whether separation of metal compounds is really necessary to create new, high-performance cathode materials.

Each step of the self-contained recycling process is accompanied by an economic and ecological life cycle analysis.

The battery recycling project comes as the International Energy Agency (IEA) reports that prices for raw materials commonly used in batteries such as cobalt, lithium and nickel have risen sharply.

The battery is the most expensive part of an electric vehicle, so raising the price is a natural conclusion to draw.

For example, lithium prices in May 2022 are seven times higher than early 2021 prices. “Unprecedented” demand for EV batteries as global sales boom and a lack of structural investment is cited. leading to new supply possibilities, listed as driving factors.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has created more conflict as Russia supplies about 20% of ‘high purity’ nickel globally.

THAN: Energy agency warns electric vehicles could get more expensive as commodity prices rise





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