Rinse and Repeat: An Easy New Way to Recycle Batteries is Here

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https://newscenter.lbl.gov/2023/02/01/an-easy-new-way-to-recycle-batteries-is-here/

By Aliyah Kovner, UC Berkeley News. 

Excerpt: Lithium-ion batteries have revolutionized electronics and enabled an accelerating shift toward clean energy. These batteries have become an integral part of 21st century life, but we’re at risk of running out before 2050. The main elements used in each battery – lithium, nickel, and cobalt metals as well as graphite – are increasingly scarce and expensive, and there is little environmental or fair-labor oversight of some of the remaining international supply chains. There is a pressing need to start reusing the materials we’ve already dug up and to make the battery production process safer and more equitable for all. A team of scientists from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has invented an award-winning new battery material that can check both boxes. Their product, called the Quick-Release Binder, makes it simple and affordable to separate the valuable materials in Li-ion batteries from the other components and recover them for reuse in a new battery.... 

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