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The good, the bad and the ugly of battery recycling

The ³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ Network of Excellence in Sustainability through Life Cycle Approaches will host Dr Jacqueline Edge and Dr Evangelos Kallitsis, who will deliver a talk on battery recycling in LCA. 

Abstract:

As the battery industry scales up to meet Net Zero targets, a mountain of dead batteries looms, representing not only a waste of valuable resources, but also significant risks to human and environmental health. Battery materials, through production scrap and end-of-life batteries, are already being recovered through a range of methods, but there are concerns about the additional burdens that the current methods impose, through waste gases and contaminated water. The ReLiB project, funding by the Faraday Institution, is developing low impact methods for recovering greater proportions of the materials within batteries. The processes developed have been tracked using life cycle assessment and technoeconomic analysis. In this talk, we will outline the different methods for recycling batteries and compare their relative merits, with a particular focus on the often overlooked issue of toxicity from battery components and process chemicals.

Bio:

Jacqueline Edge completed her Ph.D. in Hydrogen Storage at University College London in 2014 and then joined the Energy Futures Lab at ³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ, managing the Energy Storage Research Network. She is now an Associate Professor in Life Cycle Assessment at the University of Birmingham in the UK. She has a multidisciplinary background, spanning biology, computer science, nanotechnology and physics, making her ideally placed to assess and mitigate the ecosystem impacts of the growing battery industry. She is part of two Faraday Institution projects: Multiscale Modelling and ReLiB, covering battery degradation and recycling.

Evangelos Kallitsis is a Faraday Institution Industry Fellow at ³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ, working on life cycle assessment and modelling of batteries, electric vehicles and circular economy systems. As part of the Faraday Institution’s ReLiB project, he developed models to analyse the environmental impact of direct recycling processes for lithium-ion batteries and position them within a sustainable battery value chain. He holds an MSc in Chemical Engineering and a PhD in Earth Science & Engineering from ³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ.

Information for attendance

Registration is required. Register your interest in attending this seminar. The seminar will be hosted on Microsoft Teams and the link will be emailed to all registered attendees. Register