"With an organic acid, it usually takes 10–12 hours, but this took only one." Conventional solutions using inorganic acid are also slower because they include water, which has a boiling point that limits the temperature of the reaction.This article was first published in January 2018.ĭespite many years have gone by after the compulsory segregation of waste started in KL, many condos and neighbourhoods have seen little real change in facilities for recycling. "We were surprised by how quickly the leaching happened in our solution," Bai said. The leaching performance of citric acid and ethylene glycol has been explored before, but that approach used more acid and a lower temperature, which proved less effective, Bai said. "We are glad this recycling process developed by our scientists can pave the way for greater recovery of battery critical materials," said Ilias Belharouak, corporate fellow and head of the ORNL's electrification section. We were not expecting that."Įliminating the need for extra chemicals reduces costs and avoids creating byproducts or secondary wastes. "It was exciting to find that the cobalt would precipitate and settle out without further interference. "This is the first time one solution system has covered the functions of both leaching and recovery," said lead researcher Lu Yu. Most importantly, it served a second function by recovering over 96% of the cobalt in a matter of hours without the typical addition of more chemicals in what is usually a tricky process of manually balancing acid levels. It also enabled efficient separation of the metal solution from other residues. The recycling technique developed there leached nearly 100% of the cobalt and lithium from the cathode without introducing impurities in the system. "Our approach could reduce the cost of batteries over time." The research was conducted in ORNL's Battery Manufacturing Facility, the country's largest open-access battery manufacturing research and development center. "Because the cathode contains the critical materials, it is the most expensive part of any battery, contributing more than 30% of the cost," said Yaocai Bai, a member of the ORNL battery research team. This green solution produced a strikingly efficient separation and recovery process for the metals from the positively charged electrode of the battery, called the cathode. Citric acid comes from sustainable sources and is much safer to handle than inorganic acids. The spent battery is soaked in a solution of organic citric acid-which occurs naturally in citrus fruits-dissolved in ethylene glycol, an antifreeze agent commonly used in consumer products like paint and makeup. This simple, efficient and environmentally-friendly solution developed by ORNL researchers overcomes the main obstacles presented by previous approaches. Their research is published in the journal Energy Storage Materials. Researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have improved on approaches that dissolve the battery in a liquid solution in order to reduce the amount of hazardous chemicals used in the process. However, recovering metals such as cobalt and lithium could reduce pollution, reliance on foreign sources, and choked supply chains. It also requires complicated separation and precipitation to recover the critical metals. The conventional process recovers a few of the battery materials and relies on caustic, inorganic acids and hazardous chemicals that may introduce impurities.
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