New Technique for Environmentally Friendly Battery Recycling

Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, have created a new and efficient way to recycle metals from spent electric vehicle (EV) batteries. The method allows recovery of 100 percent of the aluminum and 98 percent of the lithium in EV batteries. At the same time, the loss of valuable raw materials such as nickel, cobalt, and manganese is minimized. No expensive or harmful chemicals are required in the process because the researchers use oxalic acid – an organic acid that can be found in the plant kingdom.