Recycling within seconds can make future batteries considerably more sustainable

The market for lithium-ion batteries is already worth 50 billion dollars. In ten years, it is expected to reach 200 billion. Around the same time, the amount of raw materials required will exceed the amount of ingredients mined worldwide.

The future looks similar for other raw materials for other battery types. One example is lithium-nickel-manganese-cobalt batteries. These are of interest as electricity storage devices due to their extreme durability.

It is therefore high time to rethink the recycling of batteries, which are already being discarded in huge numbers. Breaking down the entire structure into its individual elements is extremely energy- and time-intensive.

Another approach, organic washing of the cathode, can restore old batteries to their original state, but is no less costly. Existing technologies are therefore by no means ideal for meeting the ever-increasing demand for battery storage

Fast and efficient

That sounds rather different with a method presented at Rice University, Houston, Texas. The cathode material can be extracted without solvents, but with heat and a strong magnetic field.

Cobalt-based battery scrap is heated to almost 2,200 °C (4,000 °F) in just a few seconds. The ferromagnetic content is then extracted using an electromagnet. In this way, impurities, for example, are left behind

The cathode material retains its chemical composition and, above all, its crystal structure. According to the study, more than 90 percent of the treated mass can be extracted from different cathode materials using this technique.

The material, which is basically identical to that originally used, can then be reused for the construction of batteries. As the process only takes a few seconds, the energy required is manageable

And it is also a remarkable shortcut to reusing old batteries - at least the cathodes, which account for 35 percent of the weight and 45 percent of the value of a battery.