In your average battery recycling plant, battery parts are shredded down into a powder, and then that powder is either melted (pyrometallurgy) or dissolved in acid (hydrometallurgy). But Li batteries are made up of lots of different parts that could explode if they're not disassembled carefully.
As the demand for batteries continues to rise with the increasing adoption of electric vehicles and renewable energy systems, the development of efficient battery-recycling technology becomes crucial. In addition, alternative batteries are being developed that reduce reliance on rare earth metals.
Batteries won’t be the magic miracle technology that cleans up the entire grid. Other sources of low-carbon energy that are more consistently available, like geothermal, or able to ramp up and down to meet demand, like hydropower, will be crucial parts of the energy system.
Columbia Engineers have developed a new, more powerful “fuel” for batteries—an electrolyte that is not only longer-lasting but also cheaper to produce. Renewable energy sources like wind and solar are essential for the future of our planet, but they face a major hurdle: they don’t consistently generate power when demand is high.
Next-generation batteries are also safer (less likely to combust, for example), try to avoid using critical materials that require imports, rare minerals, or digging into the earth, and can store more energy (letting you drive further in your electric vehicle before finding a charging station, for example).
Also, since large scale, cheap ways to recycle Li batteries are lagging behind, only about 5% of Li batteries are recycled globally, meaning the majority are simply going to waste. But as demand for EVs escalates, as it's projected to, the impetus to recycle more of them is set to barrel through the battery and motor vehicle industry.