The SER Group, a Manchester-based IT recycling business, said Cellcycle will offer a ‘truly circular economy solution’ to battery waste and in doing so will recover elements within batteries that currently need to be sent abroad for further refining.
Cellcycle, which holds Approved Battery Exporter (ABE) and Approved Battery Treatment Operator (ABTO) permits, said it will collect batteries and package them in UN and ADR approved packaging before taking them back to their facility to be dismantled before mechanical and chemical separation recycling processes are completed.
Batteries deemed unsafe or critical during collection will be placed in special battery boxes equipped to contain batteries that set alight or start to produce thermal runaway.
According to Jeff Borrman, Cellcycle’s Battery Division director, there are several ways to stop the thermal run away when shredding in an inert atmosphere using CO2, nitrogen or aqueous solution.
“We prefer the aqueous solution route as it reduces the issue of dust and issues around fine particles of nickel oxide/carbon and the effect of HF on the equipment,” he said. “It also lends itself to the next stage process of extraction we are developing for the recovery battery elemental salts.”
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He continued: “I can’t give too much away on the chemical process we are currently developing, due to pending IP. However, instead of using the harsh chemical approach often found through the hydrometallurgical process we will use what I like to call a ‘soft-chemicals’, which have considerably less environmental impact but will allow us to recover lithium hydroxide, along with nickel and cobalt salt for the battery industry.”
Borrman added that Cellcycle gives the UK a facility that can avoid lithium, nickel, cobalt black mass - the shredded extracted material from the batteries - being sent abroad for further refining.
“The UK no longer has any refiners capable of doing this process,” he said. “These refiners are extracting lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese and other elements via pyrometallurgical and hydrometallurgical methods which the resultant products are sold via open markets…for numerous metal requirements and for future battery manufacturing directly, but not in the UK. The expectation is that our process will be one of the first in the UK to recover these elements.”
A study from WMG suggests around 350,000 tonnes of expired electric vehicle batteries will be recycled in the UK by 2040.
“We see ourselves expanding into other parts of the UK and Europe with our process…if we can achieve process goals we are working on, along with its benefits in reducing the impact on the environment during the recovery, we should expect a minimum of 10-25 per cent of the UK market,” concluded Borrman.
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