As the sales of electric vehicles (EV) continue to surge worldwide, demand for metals needed to build lithium-ion batteries is surging along with it. A new technique developed by Professor Gisele Azimi (ChemE, MSE) could help meet this challenge by changing the way that such batteries are recycled.
Azimi and her team at U of T Engineering’s Laboratory for Strategic Materials, have proposed a new, more sustainable method to mine valuable metals — including lithium, but also cobalt, nickel and manganese — from lithium-ion batteries that have reached the end of their useful lifespan.
“Getting these metals from raw ore takes a lot of energy,” says Jiakai (Kevin) Zhang (ChemE PhD candidate), lead author on a new paper recently published in Resources, Conservation and Recycling.
Read the full U of T Engineering News story.