What happens to electric car batteries when they expire?

There have been a number of environmental stumbling blocks towards the development of electric cars.

One is that their emissions are merely displaced as long as electricity is sourced from coal power plants – something that can only be addressed by the expansion of renewable energy (see article). Another, is how electric car batteries will be disposed when they are no longer useful?

Well it seems the latter question may finally be addressed after the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety awarded €5.7million to Chemetall Lithium to set up a pilot plant for the recycling of lithium-ion batteries. With Chemetall providing additional funds, the total investment is above €10million. 

Currently, there is limited knowledge as to how large lithium-ion batteries can be collected and recycled. Existing technologies focus on the recycling of lithium-ion batteries for portable electronics and feature little to no recovery of lithium. At the moment there is no process for recycling automotive batteries for electric cars.

So the aim of the so-called LithoRec project is to develop recycling techniques for lithium-ion batteries for electric cars with the consortium of companies following the entire lifecycle of a battery from design through to the final recovery of battery materials that can be used for new batteries.

The company is also aiming for high recycling efficiency of large-scale automotive batteries for the industry throughout both Germany and the rest of Europe. It hopes to secure the supply of raw materials such as lithium and cobalt. The project runs through September 2011.

Details…