Ascend Elements invents a new process to recover metals from waste batteries and reuse them in the production of EV lithium-ion batteries.

According to foreign media reports, Ascend Elements, an American battery recycling company, has invented a new process that can cut up waste batteries and convert them into cathode materials for batteries in electric vehicles. The process produces a powder of a "black substance" ('black mass)'), which is then Filter-fed to remove impurities and extract all individual metal elements, thereby reducing the need for mining.

The company says the recycled batteries can be customized to meet manufacturers' requirements so that the batteries have a longer life than conventional electric vehicle batteries and can be recharged more frequently.

Ascend Elements has reached an agreement with Honda (Honda) to supply Honda with cathode materials for its electric vehicles and plans to open a large battery recycling plant in Georgia. It is estimated that there are about 10 million electric vehicles in the world, with 1.8 million in the United States alone, and is expected to continue to rise.

However, after the battery has reached its service life for 10 years, how to deal with these waste batteries has become a major problem. These waste batteries contain harmful substances and may explode or pump toxic waste into groundwater if they are not properly dismantled before being put into landfills. As a result, many companies are looking for cleaner alternatives to extend the life of these batteries from the first decade to 15 years.

"through our patented Hydro-to-Cathode process, our products can outperform materials made through primary mining and refining," said Ascend Elements. In a recent study, the cycle life of our upgraded cathode battery was 50% longer than that of conventional cathode batteries, and the power was also increased by 88%. "

Lithium is an energy-intensive element, so it is particularly important for battery technology, but it is not the most important element of lithium-ion batteries. Jeffrey Spangenberger, director of the ReCell Center at Argonne National Laboratory, says graphite, nickel, manganese and cobalt are also important.

The metals used in electric vehicles are basically mined in places such as Australia and South America, where there are large lithium deposits. However, the extraction process of these metals consumes a lot of water and is not environmentally friendly. The metal is mined and transported to China for processing and then to electric car factories around the world. This is a major problem for the supply chain.

Ascend Elements uses the Hydro-to-Cathode process to meet the above challenges. In this process, impurities are extracted from the powder and the metal is cleaned atom by atom.

"researchers can manage to recycle nearly 100 per cent of the metal without producing toxic waste," said Roger Lin, vice president of Ascend.

The battery produced by this process will charge two to three times faster than ordinary batteries. The process has also reduced carbon emissions by 93 per cent, at about half the cost of new metal mining. What is important is that the process simplifies the supply chain by eliminating the need to transport metals to China for processing.