Leicester, England – Scientists at the University of Leicester have reportedly developed a program for recovering valuable metals from lithium-ion battery waste using vegetable oil.
Led by Professor Andy Abbott and Jake Yang at the University of Leicester in partnership with the Faraday Institution’s Reuse and Recycling of Lithium-ion Batteries (ReLib) project, the research team specifically found that by using nanoemulsions created from traces of cooking oil in water, battery-grade metal oxides from crushed batteries can be more easily recovered.
The nanodroplets of oil used in the recovery process are created using ultrasonic agitation to stabilize the traces of cooking oil. From here, the oil droplets are able to selectively bind to the carbon—which appears as graphite—in the battery waste.
Comparatively, the more valuable metal oxides remain in the solution to be collected.
As originally noted by Metal Tech News, the research team is now working with various industry stakeholders to increase the scale of the recovery process.
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