How electric car batteries are recycled

When electric car batteries are either not holding enough charge or have been damaged in an accident, they’re not done with by any means

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When electric car batteries are either not holding enough charge or have been damaged in an accident, they’re not done with by any means.

Currently, only a small number of electric and hybrid vehicles are old enough for to become End of Life Vehicles (ELVs), but the amount of accident-damaged EVs has been growing. Hybrid cars, with their smaller batteries, have also been around much longer.

Firstly, let's deal with the traditional battery which every car uses to start and which powers its accessories. Usually, the vehicle recycler removes it and passes it to a battery recycler where it's dismantled into its various parts, such as lead, silver, plastic and acid. The valuable parts can be extracted for re-use, while the lead is melted down, very easily recycled and acid neutralised.

The EV battery is another matter. Each car uses a pack consisting of 2,000-plus individual lithium-ion cells working together in modules. Other valuable elements are nickel, manganese and cobalt. They reach the end of their vehicle life when there is no longer an acceptable charging capacity.

This can be after well over 100,000 miles and eight to ten years, which is usually the warranty period. Volkswagen, for example, guarantees a minimum battery capacity of 70% – regardless of charging behaviour for eight years or 100,000 miles.

Car manufacturers are legally obliged to keep control of how their EV batteries are treated at the end of their life in a car. Under current EU rules, all waste from all types of battery should be collected free of charge for end-users, regardless of their nature, chemical composition, condition, brand or origin. In the UK battery producers must also pay for waste battery collection, treatment, recycling and disposal.

Ecobat is the world's largest recycler of batteries with facilities in the UK, mainland Europe and North America. It built its business on recycling the traditional lead-acid batteries and now works with many major manufacturers on processing end of life and second-life EV batteries. It also collects those tubes of tiny used batteries you see in supermarkets.

The volumes of EV batteries are still relatively small. Since opening in 2021, Ecobat's UK diagnostic and disassembly centre in Darlaston has processed over 5,000 Batteries and performance graded more than 10,000 Modules, but it expects this to steadily grow.

Where an EV battery is not re-sold by a dismantler, or if a dealership needs to have one taken away, Ecobat Solutions collects the battery from the vehicle dismantler using specialist boxes loaded onto trucks which protect against ‘thermal runaway’ where a damaged battery can catch fire. They are treated with the same care – if not more – as a tank of petrol. Normally, batteries must be transported at a maximum 30% charge except when they are waste.

Ecobat has dedicated units on-site where high-voltage critical batteries can be stored then examined safely and remotely – called quarantining. Battery modules are examined for faults or damage and can be discharged to safe levels for storage or further transportation. Neatly, this excess energy helps part -power car charging points in front of the building. Each battery is graded for future re-use.

The metal casing, connectors, cables and raw material like steel, aluminium and plastics are taken away for recycling. The cooling system is removed and this leaves the many individual lithium-ion cells which are either cylindrical or multiple flat plates in individual modules. These can be re-built into modules or batteries and re-certified for a new use.

The most common form of second use is repurposing for an energy storage system in a domestic or industrial setting or a solar farm. A battery that's done, say 10 years in an EV and is at 70 or 80% state of health can go into an energy storage system as it will no longer being subject to being charged up multiple times and ask to perform under sudden heavy loads. A kind of being put out to pasture.

Many carmakers have set up specific uses for the old batteries from their EVs. In 2011, Nissan's Leaf was one of the very first mass-produced EVs. In Namie, Japan, a dedicated factory (4R Energy) takes back batteries and grades them.

Sometimes, the battery components are as good as new; they get an ‘A’ grade and can be reused in new high-performance battery units for a new EV. With a ‘B’ grade, the batteries are powerful enough for industrial machinery like forklifts and large stationary energy storage. In a home or commercial building, for example, they can capture surplus electricity generated during the daytime by solar panels and then power the building during the night.

The ‘C’ grade batteries can be used in units that supply backup power when the electric grid fails, say at grocery stores that must have their refrigerators and lights running even during a power outage. The 4R Energy engineers estimate the recovered batteries have a life span of about 10 to 15 years.

In 2022 Jaguar Land Rover partnered with Pramac to develop a portable zero-emission energy storage unit powered by second-life Jaguar I-Pace batteries from prototype and engineering test vehicles. Charged from solar panels, the unit is a self-contained solution that consists of a battery system linked to a bi-directional converter and the associated control management systems.

The top system has a capacity of up to 125kWh – more than enough, JLR claims, to fully charge an EV, or to power a regular family home for a week. The units are available for commercial hire and fitted with Type 2 charging connections.

On a larger scale former EV batteries could be used to power manufacturing plants and streets. Eventually the factories that produce the batteries could be powered using the repurposed batteries.

When an EV battery isn't viable for being re-used, there is little chance it will be sent to landfill. The cells are put through a first stage recycling process, essentially crushing, sifting and filtration. Once any non-metal material is extracted the remains are called ‘black mass’ but contain lithium, nickel, manganese, cobalt, all valuable metals.

Until now, black mass, in simple terms, ended up in a blast furnace but should be able to be separated in future. For example, in Germany Volkswagen opened its first plant for recycling used electric car batteries in 2021 and it aims to create a closed material cycle that will not only reduce the Volkswagen Group's primary demand for raw materials in the long term but can also significantly reduce the carbon footprint of the batteries.

At the plant in Saltzgitter, a partner company from the chemical industry then separates the black mass into its individual components and these can be used as secondary raw material for the construction of cathodes of new batteries – without any loss of quality compared to new, primary material.

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