The company, 49 per cent owned by Technology Minerals, will lead the project, which has received £1.96m in funding from Innovate UK. The Advanced Materials & Processing Laboratory (AMPLab) at Birmingham University will support the project.
Recyclus' first lithium-ion recycling plant in Wolverhampton is capable of recycling 8,300 tonnes of lithium-ion per year.
They will now design and build a compact prototype Universal Battery Recycling System (UBRS), a mobile recycling truck capable of handling a complete range of Li-ion battery modules on an individual or batch-load basis.
The recycling trucks will be based on Recyclus’ existing technology for industrial-scale Li-ion battery recycling, which is capable of handling the five key lithium-ion chemistries in any combination. Recyclus plans to operate the recycling trucks with sizes ranging from 7.5 to 16 tonnes, which will be capable of processing between 500 and 2,000kh of Li-ion batteries per hour.
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The company said the system will be completely sealed, emission free, with a gated infeed chamber and a series of sealed outfeed chutes which feeds separated materials - black mass (containing lithium, manganese, cobalt and nickel), electrolyte, ferrous and non-ferrous metals, and light mixed fraction (plastic, rubber and paper) - into collection containers.
In a statement, Robin Brundle, chairman of Technology Minerals, said: “The rapid development of consumer goods such as vapes, handhelds, e-Bikes and the general transition to electric transport is already causing serious environmental issues. The build-up of end-of-life Li-ion batteries over the coming years will create a battery waste tsunami that we need to prepare for by investing in the capabilities and capacity for large-scale battery recycling.”
Brundle continued: “The Recyclus mobile unit takes the recycling solution to the problem and will provide a reliable, cost-effective and automated process for safe and environmentally friendly recycling of Li-ion batteries across the UK. This will accelerate the recovery of the critical raw materials essential to the transition to electrification and significantly reduce the use of landfill. This innovative mobile battery recycling system will implement a new industry standard that can benefit not just the UK, but around the world.”
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