What to do with millions of used batteries when there are many electric cars

There are several options for dealing with used batteries:

• to landfills, where they will poison the soil, groundwater and air as the landfills burn;
• reuse at power plants or in the home energy supply system (but even in this area there is a limit and not all batteries can be used);
• recycle and reuse raw materials, reducing the volume of mineral extraction and lowering production costs.

In Scandinavia, where the number of electric vehicles already exceeds 40% of the total fleet, they decided to focus on recycling. To do this battery manufacturer Northvolt and aluminium company Hydro build a plant, where used batteries will be recycled. It will be located in Norway (Fredrikstad), will start operating in 2021 and will initially be designed to process 8,000 tonnes of batteries per year.

How the battery recycling process will work

The main idea of the battery recycling centre is not just to dispose of batteries, but to obtain raw materials for reuse.

Batteries can be recycled almost entirely - out of 1 tonne of waste, 994 kg are converted into secondary raw materials. The remaining 6 kg are shells that are not included in ferrous scrap.

Recycled materials recovered from batteries are used in ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, chemical industry, engineering and instrumentation.

The processing process will produce aluminium and black metal (a mixture of minerals containing cobalt, nickel, and lithium) from the batteries. Hydro will deal with the aluminium, while Northvolt will take care of the black mass. The remaining materials that will be separated during the process will be sold to scrap metal buyers.

Emma Nerenheim, Northvolt's director of environmental protection, said the company aims to reach volumes by 2030 where The 50% will use recycled batteries as the raw material for its production.

Given that by 2025, the Norwegian government plans to replace all cars and trucks with electric vehicles, the launch of a battery recycling plant will be a solution to one of the main challenges of electric mobility.

Arvid Moss, executive vice president, energy and corporate development at Hydro, said that the cooperation with Northvolt will help to reuse aluminium from spent batteries, reduce the cost of the metal and reduce the negative impact on the environment. Given that Each battery requires about 75-100 kg of aluminium to produceThis synergy of companies really simplifies the whole process.

A positive example - Li-Cycle

Canadian company Li-Cycle has learnt to safely and efficiently extract lithium, cobalt and nickel from lithium-ion batteries. To this end, in 2019, the company developed and put into production a technology that allows it to recover 80%, or even all 100% of electric vehicle battery materials.

The technology is safe: it eliminates the risk of fire during processing and produces no solid waste or emissions. It also requires little water.

Li-Cycle currently processes 5000 tonnes of batteries per year and plans to expand further.

What will the opening of electric vehicle battery recycling plants bring?

• Batteries will not be dumped in landfills and poison the environment
• Used materials will be put back into production
• The total cost of the battery will decrease
• Slower mining rates, lower air emissions, and less negative impact on soil and water