Toyota, Argonne National Lab study lithium-ion battery recycling

Toyota Motor North America, Ann Arbor, Michigan, has entered a cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA) with the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory to investigate developing a direct recycling process for lithium-ion batteries from electric vehicles (EVs) with cathode chemistries made of nickel, manganese and cobalt.

"Having Argonne utilize our commercial battery products will help us evaluate the direct recycling process at an industrial scale, in addition to other battery recycling technologies, to maintain a diverse portfolio of recycling options for a diverse array of battery platforms and chemistries," says Nik Singh, senior scientist in the Materials Research Department of the automaker’s in-house entity for exploring next-generation technologies, Toyota Research Institute of North America (TRINA).

"Toyota is in a unique position to bridge aspects of fundamental research with product evaluation, development and commercialization to help its U.S. battery manufacturing achieve better circularity and supply chain security."

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Toyota will provide Argonne with end-of-life and new Toyota batteries. Using these batteries, Argonne will adapt and test its patent pending direct recycling process. Further, TRINA will lend its expertise to validate this "proof-of-concept" study.  

“Besides recycling end-of-life batteries, we’re also interested in recycling new batteries,” Argonne principal materials scientist Albert Lipson says. ​“Manufacturers produce some battery cells that fail quality testing. We can potentially demonstrate that manufacturers can take cathodes out of failed cells and put them back into their production process. This capability could translate into huge cost savings.”

"Based on preliminary projections, direct recycling can potentially offer significant cost and carbon footprint savings," says Sarah Kennedy, operations manager of Toyota's Battery Lifecycle Solutions Business Development team. "Toyota's Battery Lifecycle Solutions entity will help identify the appropriate pathway for the potential future commercialization of this technology, pending the outcome of the CRADA, as the project is projected to deliver a net improvement in battery materials manufacturing costs, waste and carbon footprint."

The project with Argonne is part of Toyota's goal of designing a closed-loop battery ecosystem aimed at maximizing sustainability. In 2015, Toyota announced the Environmental Challenge 2050, a set of goals to achieve carbon neutrality across the vehicle life cycle by 2050. For electrified vehicles, this includes battery recycling, whether after first use or after being repurposed or refurbished, to ensure that raw materials are extracted and put back into the production process.

Argonne National Lab says the project could reduce the nation’s reliance on foreign sources of battery materials. If successful, the effort could make domestic battery supply chains more robust and circular, which could enable rapid deployment of EVs in the U.S.

In most battery recycling today, the chemical structure of end-of-life battery components is broken down into the raw materials used in manufacturing, Argonne National Lab says in a news release about the project. However, with the technique called direct recycling, components are extracted from spent batteries, retaining their original structures. If done well, manufacturers can reuse the components.

According to the lab, the cathodes (positive electrodes) in batteries have complex chemistries and their manufacturing processes are costly and produce waste. By preserving the cathodes from end-of-life batteries, direct recycling could reduce manufacturing costs and waste significantly. It also could reduce the need for pristine raw materials.

“Direct recycling is cutting-edge in the battery industry,” Lipson says. ​“There are a few startup companies with small-scale pilot projects underway. But implementation at commercial scale is still in need of new innovations.”

The collaboration is taking advantage of a direct recycling process developed by the Argonne-based ReCell Center that uses a magnet to separate cathodes and anodes (negative electrodes) from batteries.

Researchers at Argonne’s Materials Engineering Research Facility (MERF) will apply ReCell’s direct recycling process to Toyota’s battery cells, extracting and regenerating the cathode material. The team will test various aspects of the cathodes’ performance, such as capacity, lifetime and impedance (a type of resistance to electric current), in coin cells.

If the cells perform well, MERF researchers will scale up the recycling process. Argonne’s Cell Analysis, Modeling and Prototyping Facility will then build larger pouch cells from the extracted cathodes and test the cells’ performance. In parallel, Toyota will use its own research facilities to build and test cells.

The team will compare the performance of the recycled cathodes with the performance of new, pristine cathodes. It also will use Argonne’s EverBatt model to evaluate the costs and environmental effects of applying the direct recycling process to Toyota’s batteries.

“Our goal is to prove that the process can make high-performing cathodes cost-effectively while reducing energy use and emissions,” Lipson says. ​“If we’re successful, EV and battery manufacturers can potentially commercialize the process.”