Quick-Release Binder: An Easy Way to Recycle Batteries

We’re using more Lithium-ion batteries but are running out of ingredients. There’s a need to reuse the valuable components, but recycling batteries isn’t easy. Now, Berkeley Lab scientists have stepped in to invent a material — Quick-Release Binder — that makes the process to extract the ingredients for reuse easy, economical, and environmentally friendly.

“We’re getting to the point that recycling batteries will be a requirement,” said project leader Gao Liu  , a senior scientist in Berkeley Lab’s Energy Technologies Area and a member of the Berkeley Lab Energy Storage Center. “If we don’t stop burning them and throwing them in the trash, we will run out of resources in the next ten years. It’s just impossible to keep up with the number of batteries the market is demanding otherwise. There’s just not enough cobalt, not enough nickel – we have to recycle.”

Transcript

00:00:00 We’re using more and more Lithium-ion batteries. But we’re running out of the ingredients. There’s an urgent need to recycle the rare metals inside batteries, so we can re-use them in fresh batteries. A new material from Berkeley Lab scientists not only makes this feasible, but also makes the processes for producing and recycling batteries cleaner and more sustainable. The material is called the Quick-Release Binder. It’s a totally new type of binder - the glue-like substance that holds a battery’s active ingredients together Made of two inexpensive polymers,

00:00:39 polyacrylic acid and polyethyleneimine, the Quick-Release Binder dissolves in room temperature alkaline water. Batteries made with it simply need to be opened, placed into the water, and gently shaken. Then the valuable materials within, like nickel and cobalt, can be air-dried and recovered. Current battery recycling is an energy-demanding process that produces waste products. Excitingly, the Quick-Release Binder contains no toxic chemicals and the unique production and breakdown processes eliminate the need for harsh solvents The team’s new binder presents an efficient, inexpensive, and non-toxic path forward for battery recycling.