Page 48 - ESJ – ENERGY STORAGE JOURNAL

FEATURE: RECYCLING

ganese, iron, phosphate — a bunch of con-
taminants, and the question is how do those
contaminants affect battery performance,
which sets the definition for what the purity
specs need to be for the materials going back
in to the battery.”
He says the Joint Center for ElectroChemi-
cal Research, also at Argonne, is looking into
this. “They have access to a good range of
technologies,” he says. “They can look at elec-
trostatics and magnetics and froth flotation
and acid leaching — and this direct recycling.”
Umicore approach
Belgium-based Umicore’s battery recycling
process recovers the full battery, the company
says.
Argonne battery post-test lab “The recycling rate is about 95% for target
metals like Cu, Co and Ni,” says Marjolein
“Frankly lead is easy to recycle, which is Scheers, media and external affairs manager.
why we do it. Lithium is not. But the DoE is “Metals are infinitely recyclable without los-
interested because it’s trying to build an en- ing their properties.
ergy storage economy. It has a lot of technol- “Our recycling is a combination of pyro-
ogy related to that, which has come out of its metallurgical and hydrometallurgial process-
work in nuclear fuels and special alloys. It has ing. We have proprietary smelting technology,
a lot of technology in metallurgy, chemistry minimizing energy consumption and treating
and process chemical engineering to do these potentially harmful gases.
kinds of processes.” “After sorting and dismantling, metals are
But there are lots of unanswered questions. recovered in a high temperature smelting pro-
“In any secondary material, and this includes cess. Treatment includes the safe dismantling
lead, what is the spec that you have to meet?” of large industrial batteries such as EV bat-
says Ellis. “How much of a contaminant can teries without crushing or shredding the cells.
you put back into a battery and how does that The advantage of this process is that operators
affect performance? When you mine it out of and the environment are not exposed to haz-
the ground in the Congo, you separate the ardous battery compounds.
copper and the cobalt and you get a very high “Recycling includes the transformation of
purity cobalt. If you start recycling scrap, you battery materials in a smelter into a metal al-
start getting aluminium, lithium, copper, man- loy, containing Co, Ni and Cu and a concen-
trate containing Li and Rare Earth Elements.
This fraction is further refined for Li and REE
recovery in a refinery outside Umicore. Man-
ganese is not being processed.
“The process is energy efficient as it recovers
the energy present in the batteries, while treat-
ing potentially harmful gases. The plastics and
other organic compounds, including solvents
and electrolytes, are burned as a gas to pro-
duce heat for the process. The gas is cleaned
so there are no harmful emissions.”
Scheers says all Li-ion and NiMH batteries
are recycled and metals retrieved in their pur-
est form for re-use in cathode materials. Lithi-
um is also recovered with a pyrometallurgical
process and externally refined for re-use.
“Lithium plays a vital role in powering the
rapid trend towards electrified mobility. By
recovering lithium from end-of-life batteries,
“There are a lot of people trying to find the recycling Umicore is leading the way towards a circular
solution, I think some are coming a little late to the economy, providing solutions to the growing
demand for sustainably sourced materials,”
game, we have a lot of expertise and our mining says Scheers.
“Eventually batteries will have to be recy-
experience has really helped us because a lot of the cled as valuable metals like Co and Ni should
equipment we use in mineral processing is similar” not go to waste and hazardous components
should not end up in the environment. The pi-
– Zarko Meseldzija lot plant has a capacity of 7.000t/y. When the

46 • Energy Storage Journal • Summer 2019 www.energystoragejournal.com