Orange peel helps to recycle lithium-ion batteries

The team at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) said their waste-to-resource approach tackles food waste and electronics waste, supporting the development of a circular economy.

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In a statement, Professor Madhavi Srinivasan, co-director of the NTU Singapore-CEA Alliance for Research in Circular Economy (NTU SCARCE) lab, said: “Current industrial recycling processes of e-waste are energy-intensive and emit harmful pollutants and liquid waste, pointing to an urgent need for eco-friendly methods as the amount of e-waste grows. Our team has demonstrated that it is possible to do so with biodegradable substances.”

The findings were published in Environmental Science & Technology in July.

With industrial approaches to recycling battery waste generating harmful pollutants, hydrometallurgy – using water as a solvent for extraction – is increasingly being explored as a possible alternative. This process involves first shredding and crushing used batteries to form a crushed material called black mass. Researchers then extract valuable metals from black mass by dissolving it in a mix of strong acids or weak acids plus other chemicals like hydrogen peroxide under heat, before letting the metals precipitate.