Today, the most common fate of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), which are used in electronic devices such as mobile phones and computers, and electric mobility (scooters, bicycles, motorbikes and vehicles), is landfill, which involves major safety and environmental risks. Due to their composition, discarded batteries can catch fire and explode, which is a clear risk for waste treatment plants and during transport. In terms of environmental impact, LIBs have chemical components that can be released into the environment as they degrade.
METALLO. Image Credit: AIMPLAS
However, lithium is one of the European Union’s critical raw materials due to its strategic and economic importance. It is also subject to supply risks as a result of high demand because it is considered essential for electric mobility and the transition to a low-carbon economy.
The Plastics Technology Centre (AIMPLAS) is tackling these two challenges through the METALLON Project with the participation of the Environmental Engineering Research Group (GI2AM) at the Universitat de València, the electric vehicle mobility company GDV Mobility and the IT and technological waste management company Recuintec. The aim is to improve the process of reusing and recycling complex waste such as LIBs in order to recondition them and give them a second life and, if they must be disposed of, to optimize recycling and recovery processes to extract and recover the lithium and other high-value metals and minerals they contain. This project is financed by the Valencian Institute for Competitiveness and Innovation (IVACE+i) with the support of European ERDF Programme.
According to Santiago Llopis, a Chemical Recycling researcher at AIMPLAS, “Current processes for recycling lithium-ion batteries, such as pyrometallurgy and hydrometallurgy, have certain limitations, including the impossibility of recovering lithium using standard pyrometallurgical methods, high energy costs, the intensive use of inorganic acids and the generation of highly polluting waste (gases and water). In the METALLON Project, we are investigating LIB metal recovery techniques that do not have a negative environmental impact. We’ll replace inorganic acids with less hostile agents, such as green solvents, and study biohydrometallurgical processes as an innovative, cleaner and cheaper alternative requiring minimal energy consumption and the use of biological reagents”.
The research project also includes pre-recycling strategies to try to reduce generation of this waste in the first place. Methods will therefore be established to identify the status of LIBs at the end of their life cycle and procedures will be implemented to determine if they can be reconditioned and reused in different sectors such as mobility and the electrical and electronics industry.
The METALLON Project is funded by the Valencian Institute for Competitiveness and Innovation (IVACE+i) through the call for Strategic Projects in Cooperation 2023 of the Valencian Agency for Innovation in conjunction with the ERDF Programme.