STTR Phase I: Advanced Material Recycling for Lithium Ion Battery Electrodes

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project will be to recycle materials for use in manufacture of advanced batteries. Success and commercialization of this projects? technology will facilitate recycling of consumer and electric vehicle waste batteries. The project enhances scientific understanding by demonstrating the durability, robustness and recyclability of advanced engineered materials. Societal and commercial impacts of the successful commercial implementation include: (1) Preservation of critical materials (for example cobalt) for processing into the new battery. (2) Savings of energy used in mining, and the avoidance of sulfur oxides (SOX) and arsenide that result in processing ores. (3) Elimination of hazardous disposal costs of end-of-life batteries. (4) Reduced manufacturing costs. (5) Establishment of new jobs required for collection, processing and distribution of materials. The objectives of this Phase I research project are to demonstrate feasibility of recycling material from lithium-ion batteries. The research project will recycle scrap batteries using innovative processes that produce material suitable for use in new batteries. The project will process and characterize the recycled materials and compare those technical results with appropriate standards. To stage the pre-commercial demonstration, new cells will use recycled materials and be characterized directly for capacity, rate and cycle life. The Phase I project will target a small cell made using recycled material. The Phase I project will result in comparative analysis of small cells made using recycled material and standard commercial material, with performance expectation of the cell from recycled material to be within 5-10% of the cell from fresh commercial material.