Liam Critchley looks at why there is a need to recycle EV batteries and considers some of the emerging solutions.
The development of electric vehicle (EV) batteries has increased massively in the last few years as the adoption of EVs has become more commonplace. EVs have been developed to have a positive impact on emissions against internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, and while they do remove local emissions and pollution (there is still some debate on the amount of mining they require), there is still the discussion around what to do when the batteries are spent.
In the coming years, more EV batteries are going to reach their end-of-life (EoL) and there is going to be a need to recycle these batteries rather than send them to landfill – as they are often replaced due to having lower than optimal capacities, not because they are completely spent.
Why recycle EoL EV batteries
The growth of technology in the last two decades has helped to shift various dynamics in modern-day society, from new levels of social connectivity and computing developments, all the way through to various portable electronic devices thanks to battery innovations. However, while technological advancements have brought about many societal benefits, they have also caused a serious environmental problem in the form of electronic waste (e-waste).
Aside from the actual waste generation, there’s also the issue from the recycling side, because less than one quarter (22%) of e-waste was collected in 2022, meaning that electronic waste is being generated five times faster than it is being recycled.
These numbers are still a couple of years behind today’s challenges, and with the numbers growing year-on-year, it’s likely the issues have become worse in the last couple of years. These reports cover the current levels of e-waste, but we have yet to see the true impact of battery EV waste.
Because EVs are still relatively new, there has not been time yet to see the true impact of how many batteries will be left in the landfill after use – many of these batteries are still used in cars and will be for many years.
Fast forward another 10 years, when more batteries have degraded beyond the point of peak performance and been replaced, then the situation could be very different. Before this happens, plans should be put in place to tackle the sheer number of EV batteries that will eventually hit landfill – especially when e-waste recycling is poorly efficient in general – because there’s the potential to exacerbate the problem exponentially as they are much heavier and bulkier than other forms of e-waste and will be in large numbers as more people shift towards EVs compared to ICE vehicles.
Beyond the sheer amount of e-waste, there’s also the safety aspects and economic values to consider. Tom Schaefer, Ecobat VP global business development, lithium, said: “EV batteries, like all lithium-ion batteries, can pose a safety hazard if improperly handled at end of life. Fires, noxious gases, and shock hazards exist if EV batteries are not disposed of properly.” Ecobat is a leading company in the collection, recycling, production and distribution of energy storage systems.
From an economic perspective, Schaefer states “there is inherent material value in EV batteries. Aside from commonly recycled metals, like copper and aluminium, lithium batteries contain valuable nickel, cobalt and lithium. These metals hold significant benefit both in their market values as well as the reduction in demand for virgin mined materials.”
Given that mining is a hot topic when speaking about the environmental impact of EV batteries, being able to develop a more circular economy by recycling the materials in batteries could go a long way to making EVs even greener (and potentially remove some of the issues that people have when weighing up the current levels of mining in EV batteries versus the emissions produced from ICE vehicles).
Overall, the recycling of EV batteries is a forward-thinking issue that requires some perceptive problem-solving, but there are now companies out in the industry who are starting to find potential solutions to the potential EV battery waste challenges that will manifest more prominently in the coming years.
Ecobat-Nissan partnership
One of the recent industry developments has come from Ecobat Solutions UK, who have been working with the automotive manufacturer Nissan to give the Nissan Leaf batteries a second life. The aim of the partnership has been to take Nissan Leaf batteries that are no longer on the road and recover, repair, recycle or repurpose them.
“EoL batteries have the potential for reuse, and the current market forces favour harvesting metals through recycling versus reuse application,” said Schaefer.
One of the benefits of a battery recycler partnering with an automotive manufacturer directly, is that is enables the manufacturer to offer second life batteries directly to consumers (after repurposing) with a manufacturer’s official warranty.
The Ecobat-Nissan partnership aims to use Nissan Leaf batteries that have been dismantled due to either old age or having been written off by insurers, but still have useful life in them. Ecobat already has a diagnostic and disassembly centre that has processed over 6,000 batteries to date, and the new partnership will become a key commercial development alongside the opening of a third lithium-ion recycling facility in the UK.
“Ecobat sees value in efficiently recovering the core materials of EV batteries and is leveraging its decades of experience in lead-acid battery recycling to springboard into the industry. Ecobat works with several global OEMs across North America and Europe, primarily as a recycling provider but also for diagnostics of used batteries. Our partnership with Nissan is an opportunity to work together to investigate how EV batteries, from Nissan Leafs that are no longer on the road, can be located within the UK salvage network and then be safely recovered, repaired, recycled or repurposed to create a sustainable circular energy economy” Schaefer said.
From the manufacturer’s side, these partnerships are going to help improve the chance that more batteries get recycled, because there are often different technical challenges that need to be addressed, which is partly the reason for a low uptake of battery and e-waste recycling in general. On the area of technical challenges, Schaefer added: “The most important factor in recycling is efficiency. Ultimately, a sustainable battery business must be efficient and low cost at extracting the valuable materials we’re after: nickel, cobalt and lithium. Stripping away all the other metals, plastics and solvents that make up a battery in an efficient manner is the single most challenging aspect of the business.”
In terms of this specific partnership, Nissan is aiming to repurpose the batteries into different second-life applications, including battery energy storage systems such as emergency power backup and power balancing applications, as well as for mobile power charging systems. There are already other plans in place for Ecobat to work with other car manufacturers, including Volkswagen.
When asked about other partnerships, Schaefer said Ecobat finalised an agreement with Volkswagen Group in the UK in March to collect and recycle EV batteries. “The deal helps VWG UK close the loop to promote a circular energy economy and ensures the UK’s largest automotive group is doing all it can to boost sustainability.”
As for where Ecobat goes from here in helping to promote EoL battery recycling in the coming years, Schaefer said “Ecobat will grow with the EoL battery market. Right now, most of the lithium-ion scrap comes from waste generated during the manufacturing process – this is called ‘production scrap’. Current estimates have this material representing the majority of available scrap through 2030, at which point EoL batteries will become the majority. To capture this growing market, Ecobat will continue to grow with our valued partners up and down the recycling chain.”
Recycling EV batteries for short-term DER grid storage
The phasing out of fossil fuels, and the increased demands posed on energy grids (and the disruptions caused) in the wake of natural disasters, means that more renewable energy sources are being integrated into the grid. These are intermittent energy generation sources known as distributed energy resources (DERs) or renewable energy resources (RERs), and before the power is transferred to the wider electrical grid, the energy is often stored within localised microgrids that use battery energy storage systems (BESS).
A study from researchers in China has looked at the possibility of using EoL EV batteries in local microgrids for storing energy from renewable DERs, such as wind and solar power. China has some of the leading innovations in EV battery technology, with both high ranges and lower costs being commonplace, so it is no surprise that studies are manifesting from this region.
Published in 2023, Xu C. et al undertook a study that looked at how EV batteries could be used in stationary storage applications for the energy grid. It is thought that around 2.1–4.8TWh of retired batteries could theoretically be available by 2050 and could help the grid achieve a storage capacity of 14.8–31.5 TWh if recycled for stationary storage use – helping microgrids to store more local energy and distribute it to the wider grid when necessary.
It has been theorised that the utilisation rates for recycling EoL batteries could be as low as 10% to achieve the necessary levels of stationary storage capacity in energy grids – but the actual values vary based on other grid storage approaches, including vehicle-to-grid (V2G) operations. While the study has focused on looking at the impacts towards 2050, it has also been noted that short-term grid storage demands could be met as early as 2030 in a lot of regions using EoL EV batteries.
BMS enables repurposing
Repurposing the batteries into racks could help to save around 100 tons of carbon emissions per MWh of batteries produced, as well as reduce the amount of e-waste going into landfills. The collaboration between the two companies is in part focused around recycling the EV batteries, and in part developing the BMS to monitor the second-life EV batteries.
Octave and Sentineo believe this approach could make EoL EV batteries last at least another 10 years – as these will also come with a manufacturing guarantee like the Nissan repurposed batteries.
The BMS that monitors the recycled battery packs can be monitored and controlled remotely on company sites, so can be used with energy suppliers – such as those who develop wind and solar energy harvesting operations. Large-scale battery packs can help to deal with the intermittent nature of renewable DERs and the need for energy at different times based on the demand response from the grid.
Stricter recycling in the US
Discussions address how EV EoL batteries can be repurposed for direct use in other applications, but the other side of the recycling coin is to extract the critical materials so that they can be used to make new EV batteries, improve the battery supply chain, and reduce the dependence on imported virgin mined materials.
The US Department of Energy (DOE) recently organised a Li-Bridge forum in conjunction with the Argonne National Laboratory and three industry associations – National Alliance for Advanced Transportation Batteries (NAATBatt) International, New York Battery and Energy Storage Technology Consortium, and New Energy Nexus. The Li-Bridge is funded by the DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Vehicle Technologies Office.
The forum was developed to look at the battery supply chain challenges of batteries – particularly around recycling – and one solution devised in the forum was a universal labelling system (physical or digital labels) that would enable manufacturers to mark all batteries during production.
As it stands, the economics of lithium battery recycling are poor because it is expensive to collect, transport and process the batteries compared to the intrinsic value that can be gained from extracting the materials. This is truer with modern-day batteries, which have been shifting away from expensive metals such as nickel and cobalt towards iron-based compounds – making them cheaper for consumers but less favourable for recycling.
The other challenge for the US recycling space is that many batteries used in EVs are shipped to countries outside the US at EoL. The leakage offshore prevents critical materials from being re-circularised back into the local economy and battery supply chain. By creating the labels, it is thought they could be used alongside export control tools to reduce the leakage of EoL batteries to other countries and help to improve the local supply chain.
Impending landfill
The growing issues around e-waste are only going to be exacerbated by the impending landfilling of spent/un-insurable EV batteries. That is going to occur as more EV batteries reach the EoL. Many commercial solutions, academic studies and government policies are being developed to help solve this incoming challenge in the coming years.
A proactive approach to developing solutions before EV battery landfilling becomes a problem is going to be key for ensuring that EV batteries get a second life in coming years – and could bring about various benefits from reduced waste, reduced carbon emissions, and a more circular battery supply chain.
Photos courtesy of Connected Energy
