STORAGENERGY TECHNOLOGIES INC — Department of Energy SBIR Phase I: 17a

Description

Considering the fast growth of global production of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), spent batteries at their end-of-life (EOL) are likely to become an important source for recycling material. Finding ways to decrease recycling cost and increase rate could significantly reduce the life cycle cost of electric vehicle (EV) batteries, avoid material shortages, lessen the environmental impact of new material production, and potentially provide low-cost active materials for new EV battery manufacturing. As one of the most promising cathode materials in LIBs, layered oxides LiNixCoyMnzO2 (NMCs) have drawn much attention due to their high energy density for EV applications. Low-cost direct recycling of NMC cathode materials is important to maintain domestic critical material reserves. In this project, Storagenergy Technologies, Inc. (Storagenergy) proposes a direct FAST recycling that enables a closed-loop recycling process to continuously recover cathode materials from spent EV batteries. The proposed high throughput and green recycling process can reduce materials cost, which provides a cost-effective way to recycling EV battery materials. When the solvent is a green chemical, the process could become a sustainable recycling process for NMC cathode regeneration. If successful, the high throughput, high yield, and low-cost EV battery recycling process promises to transform the energy storage and distribution fields. The distributed low-cost EV battery recycling technology will also serve a critical need in the future EV market. And, finally, this technology will serve to re-establish the U.S. technological lead in battery recycling that has migrated overseas. The successful development of this technology will enable a new family of American battery recycling companies at scales for both commercial and government sectors.