BATTERY STRATEGIES
life recycling very tricky and costly. You
have a lot of bonding materials that are very
diff erent, which makes it complicated and
requires multiple processes to extract the
most value,” explains Professor Bhagat.
The most prevalent method used today
involves fi rst disassembling the individual
packs, of which most OEMs use diff erent
methods, chemistries and technologies in their
units, and then shredding the cells into a mix
and treating it in a pyrometallurgical process.
“Essentially, this involves throwing the mix
into a big vat of super heated salt. This is
typically to recover cobalt, which has the
highest current market value. The lithium, for
example, often ends up going into cement and
other low cost building materials, rather than
re-entering the battery-making process,” adds
Professor Bhagat.
Despite a number of headlines claiming
otherwise, many experts believe we have a
surfeit of readily available lithium that won’t
become scarce until at least the third or fourth
generation of our current EV crop. Buying
direct from the miners is often the cheapest
method of securing an essential part of any
1. Spiers New
Technologies facility
in Oklahoma spans
over 300,000ft2
2. Audi’s factory
machines are powered
by old batteries
3. Spiers analyze each
battery cell meticulously
4. Cobalt is an essential
element used in the
construction of batteries
GOOD SPORTS
One of the more famous
second-life initiatives for
electric vehicle batteries
is in place at the Johan
Cruijff Arena in Amsterdam
where 148 Nissan Leaf
batteries create Europe’s
largest energy storage
system. Working with
energy conversion
technology from Eaton, the
old batteries form a 4MW
system that is able to store
energy created from the
venue’s use of solar and
wind power harvesting,
which is then used to help
power the stadium during
gamedays. The system
not only helps the stadium
gain independence from
the country’s grid, but also
flattens peaks typically
seen on gamedays, and
also is able to be used as
a backup source of energy
during emergencies.
modern EV battery pack, which
has seen eff orts to recycle take a
back seat.
But cobalt, regardless of all its
associated humanitarian issues,
is still the most expensive, and
so sought after element of many
EV battery chemistries. Due to
this fact, a number of EV makers,
have vowed to decrease the
amount of cobalt in Panasonicderived
NCA (nickel, cobalt,
aluminum) battery composition,
with Elon Musk tweeting in 2018
that Tesla was working towards
a cobalt-free future for its next
generation of EVs.
“We have a battery cell research
center that allows us to create the
best cells that perfectly balance
cost, weight, density, performance and
durability so we can give that formula to our
suppliers to produce the cell you fi nd in the i3,
i8 and upcoming electric vehicles,” explains
Dr Robert Irlinger, senior vice president
BMW i model line and electromobility.
“When we set up BMW i, it was all about
sustainability. Now, sustainability is in all
parts of our purchasing processes. Cobalt is
a very critical issue at the moment in battery
tech, so we looked at cobalt mines that are
sustainable. We set up the supply of BMW’s
cobalt for our battery suppliers,” he adds.
However, BMW’s next generation of battery
pack technology, which will come into force
in the upcoming ix3 and iNEXT models, will
contain considerably less cobalt in the
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