Northvolt’s Battery Recycling - Prof. Emma Nehrenheim

#BatteryRecycling #Northvolt #Electromobility As #supply #chains of #battery #materials are fragile, #raw #materials are getting #expensive. At the same time vast amounts of old, done (#cobalt-#rich) #batteries are now available for a #circular #economy. That’s why #battery #recycling is getting more and more attention! Plus, the #EU #Battery Regulation now forces #battery makers to strictly follow #sustainability rules, anyways. Let’s have a look at the #recycling plans of Sweden’s largest #battery maker #Northvolt. Subscribe to our #Battery Generation #Podcast: Our podcast guest on this episode is Prof. #Emma #Nehrenheim. She is a Professor for #Environmental #Engineering at #Mälardalen #University. As an academic #researcher and industry innovator she wants to deliver the world’s #greenest #battery for her employer. She summarizes her #innovation efforts as follows: “It’s clear to me that batteries are the enabler to so much of [my] vision for #electrification, but there are better and worse ways to build a battery from an #environmental perspective.“ The “better way“ of “#building a #battery“ includes a functioning #recycling #strategy. Fortunately, scienists optimized two very sophisticated paths of how to recycle a useless, done battery: They are based on either (1) #pyrometallurgic #recycling and/or (2) #hydrometallurgic #recycling #technologies. #Pyrometallurgic #techniques are already frequently used to get back common #battery #materials. But this comes with an enormous energy input. #Northvolt‘s #hydrometallurgical recycling technology on the other side retrieves #lithium, #nickel, #cobalt, and other metals from its #black #mass. The process produces these metals at a rather high grade so they can be used to create new #batteries afterwards. The hydromet technology works with all #formats and #chemistries of #lithium-#ion #batteries and can recover almost all #batteries’ materials. The following high-performing metal products produced from this #black #mass come with battery-grade purity levels: (1) #Lithium #carbonate, (2) #Cobalt #sulfate, (3) #Nickel #sulfate, (4) #Manganese #carbonate.