Electric Vehicle Batteries find new life as New Sources of Energy

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Electric Vehicle Batteries find new life as New Sources of Energy

Electric Vehicle Batteries find new life as New Sources of Energy

An increase in the sales and use of electric vehicles is vital for numerous governments, in order to reach their CO2 reduction targets, as these vehicles reduce overall CO2 emissions immensely. However, if special attention is not quickly given to advancing the technology of recycling the battery packs found in these vehicles, our landfills soon could be overrun. In their search for a solution to the battery waste problem, a study published in Nature by University of Birmingham researchers presents this sticky situation alongside some innovative ways to help combat it. For example, stations made of retired EV batteries can be used to reinforce unstable grid networks in many developing countries, or used to power things at our homes.

The study explains that, similar to the batteries in older mobile phones, an EV battery at the end of its automobile life could still maintain up to 80% operating capacity and could be easily repurposed for jobs elsewhere in society. Even now, Toyota, producer of the now legendary Prius—one of the most, if not the most, successful hybrid cars in history—has joined forces with 7-11 stores in Japan to expand the integration of the electric vehicle byproducts into Japanese society.

Their project aims to utilize banks of expended EV batteries from Toyota cars in conjunction with solar panels to power 7-11 stores, while new fuel-cell EVs powered by hydrogen will be serving as the distribution fleet for the legendary convenience store chain. At the same time, we can extract minerals from batteries, avoiding the environmentally-damaging mining practices that use a lot of water.

“Electric vehicles may prove to be a valuable secondary resource for critical materials, and it has been argued that high cobalt-content batteries should be recycled immediately to bolster cobalt supplies,” – “Nature” by University of Birmingham

Another mineral present in EV batteries, lithium, is one of the most critical minerals for building batteries for our portable devices and key electronic components in today’s society. To gather merely one ton of lithium requires the mining of 250 tons of the mineral ore called spodumene, or 750 tons of mineral-rich brine. Therefore, extracting lithium from car batteries (since estimates suggest that we only need 256 used EV batteries to produce 1 ton of lithium) can avoid this water-intensive carbon-intensive method of production. In 2017, the worldwide sales of electric cars exceeded 1 million units for the first time.

Market research group Deloitte reported that this figure doubled during 2018, and is close to doubling again, from 2 million to 4 million by the end of 2020. Those are big secondary resources for minerals, which could negate the need for mining many additional tons in order to power the world we love.