It costs one tenth.
Electric cars are here to stay, but to this day they still raise certain doubts, not only during use (autonomy, recharging speed) but also at the end of their useful life: recycling batteries is tremendously expensive and also polluting. However, at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory they have found a material that could solve the problem.
The first thing is to know what is the process that is currently used in batteries: to transmit electricity, two electrodes (a cathode and an anode) are joined with binders similar to glue. These, when burned, can release toxic gases.
In addition, the technique used to reuse batteries, controlled combustion, is also highly polluting.
Faced with this situation, the scientists from the aforementioned laboratory have found a material that does not contain polyfluoroalkyl chemical substances, but is made up of two polymers that dissolve when immersed in alkaline water at room temperature with caustic soda. This allows the metals to be separated, filtered and dried in the air.
In addition to being easy to use and non-polluting, this new material also has a considerable economic advantage over current binders, since its cost is one tenth of that of the most common glues.
In addition, thanks to the fact that it facilitates the reuse of spent batteries, in a collateral way it would contribute to reducing their price, since it would help to partially alleviate the global shortage of metals such as lithium, nickel and cobalt; that are used for this purpose.
Another piece of good news is that the use of this material is not limited to electric car batteries, it is likely to be used in batteries of all kinds of sizes, so its economic impact could be considerable.
The cross of the coin is in the fact that, for the moment, it is in the testing phase and the arrival of its commercial use is not expected for another 2 to 5 years.
In this way, it will enter a time when the lithium-ion battery market will have great value, since an annual growth of 13.1% is expected from now until 2031, when it is estimated that it will reach 135,100 million of dollars. Logically, the battery recycling business should follow a similar trajectory.
Source: Business Insider
