Abstract: As the demand for electric vehicles grows, recycling of lithium-ion batteries will be critical when these vehicles reach their end of life. DOE’s first advanced battery recycling R&D effort, the ReCellCenter, is working to keep electric vehicle batteries out of the landfill and grow a globally competitive U.S. recycling industry. Current recycling methods, hydrometallurgical and pyrometallurgical, yield metal salts that need to be processed back into battery materials. The value of these materials is too low for recycling to be economically feasible in the U.S.

Argonne leads the ReCellCenter, which focuses on directly recycling lithium-ion batteries. Direct recycling involves maintaining the original chemical structure and process value of battery components by recovering, regenerating, and reusing them directly. By retaining the value of original battery components, a lower-cost, upcycled material can be supplied to battery manufacturers.

This seminar will focus on scalable processes being developed in the Materials Engineering Research Facility (MERF) to break down batteries for recycling and produce clean streams of valuable materials.