How are electric vehicle batteries recycled?
Electric vehicles are increasing day by day in the market. This means that there are more electric vehicle batteries on the market now. With the increase in electric vehicle sales, emission values are decreasing.
This is a very good development, but the fate of the batteries in these vehicles is still a concern.
At the moment, people do not view the recycling of lithium-ion batteries as a profitable business venture because it is not a big problem right now and the systems of these batteries are complex.
However, the increase in these vehicles day by day will make this issue a problem in the future. Therefore, a solution to this problem needs to be found.
Electric vehicles aim to increase sustainability. However, if the environment is harmed in works such as mining carried out during the production of new batteries, this is not considered sustainability.
For this reason, we need to ensure that these batteries are recycled. For this, some actions are taken. For example, old EV batteries are used in conjunction with solar energy to illuminate streetlights in the town of Namie in Japan.
This is a good development, but not as effective as recycling.
Hydrometallurgy and Pyrometallurgy are currently the most common EV battery recycling methods.
How are electric vehicle batteries recycled through Hydrometallurgy?
Recycling businesses manually break down valuable parts such as metals and plastics that make up batteries. This is one of the most effective ways to separate ingredients.
Before separating the batteries, the batteries are discharged. The discharged battery is used in the recycling process and this is a very nice detail.
The point here is that nothing goes to waste. After the batteries are disintegrated, they are divided into different groups. One of them is 'black mass'.
Black mass is the most important part of this process because it contains valuable elements such as lithium and cobalt.
Once the process has come this far, what has been done to recycle batteries is to chemically treat them using a wet process, which is the hydrometallurgical part. With these processes, batteries are converted and mineral usage is reduced.
How are electric vehicle batteries recycled through pyrometallurgy?
The pyrometallurgy method is one way to transform electric vehicle batteries. This method is not effective and also not good for sustainability.
Because during this process, very high temperatures are used for the components to be recycled. If you are recycling and it is a harmful process in the process, it is very important that this process is extremely efficient.
However, this is not the case in this process because many elements, including Lithium, are not recycled during this process.
As a result, although recycling electric vehicle batteries is an underdeveloped sector, it is very important to develop this sector.
If you are targeting the use of electric vehicles all over the world, effective methods should be developed to recycle such a large amount of materials. A sustainable supply chain for the manufacture and recycling of electric vehicle batteries is an extremely important requirement.