I-Corps: Machine for Decentralized Recycling of Lithium-Ion Batteries

I-Corps：锂离子电池分散回收机器

• 批准号: 2219826
• 负责人: Siamak Farhad
• 金额: $ 5万
• 依托单位: University of Akron
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-04-01 至 2023-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2219826&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Corps; Machine; Decentralized; Recycling; Lithium

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of a machine designed to address the lithium-ion batteries recycling needs in an economically feasible way so that it directly benefits the society in numerous ways. It reduces the environmental impacts and the associate health risk for human and wildlife that may be caused due to landfilling these batteries. If lithium-ion batteries are landfilled, society will encounter environmental issues such as land and water contaminations and fire and explosion of landfilled batteries. It also reduces the needs to extract rare elements such as lithium and cobalt from mines to save the mines for next generations. Lastly, it improves the United States’ national security because recycling can keep the major elements or materials of lithium-ion batteries in the closed-loop of manufacturing in the country and reduces the dependency of the United States to import these elements or materials from other countries. This project will generate new jobs for labors and engineers in the United States and opens job opportunities for persons with disabilities since the process/machine can be automated. This work will increase the economic competitiveness of the United States compared to China and Europe, which are currently the pioneer in recycling lithium-ion batteries.This I-Corps project is based on the development of a recycling machine based on our two fundamental research activities, one for effective separation of electrode materials from current collectors, and one for efficient separation of anode and cathode active materials from each other. The key point is that the separations are performed without causing any damage to the morphology and composition of the anode and cathode active materials so that the separated materials can be directly regenerated and returned to the battery manufacturing process. This increases the profit from the obtained recycled materials from the proposed machine. These two key separation processes enable us to (1) offer a potentially small machine for recycling lithium-ion batteries, and (2) recycle all types of lithium-ion batteries with different chemistries and manufacturers with one machine. However, the machine operating parameters should be adjusted for each type of battery. Some of the value propositions of this machine are (1) it can be deployed fast in any location, (2) it reduces the cost of spent lithium-ion batteries transportation, handling and storage, (3) it improves the recycling efficiency, and (4) it produces more valuable outputs from spent lithium-ion batteries.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该I-Corps项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是开发旨在以经济上可行的方式解决锂离子电池回收需求的机器，以便以多种方式直接使社会受益。它降低了由于垃圾填埋电池而导致的人类和野生动植物的环境影响以及对健康的影响。如果锂离子电池被填埋，社会将遇到环境问题，例如土地和水污染以及垃圾填充电池的火灾和爆炸。它还减少了从矿山中提取稀有元素（例如锂和钴）以节省下一代矿山的需求。最后，它改善了美国的国家安全，因为回收可以将锂离子电池的主要要素或材料保留在该国制造业的闭环，并减少美国从其他国家进口这些元素或材料的依赖。该项目将为美国的劳动者和工程师创造新的就业机会，并为残疾人提供工作机会，因为该过程/机器可以自动化。与中国和欧洲相比，这项工作将提高美国的经济竞争力，目前是回收锂离子电池的先驱。该I-Corps项目基于基于我们的两项基本研究活动的回收机的开发，一种是用于将电极材料与当前收集器的有效分离，以及一种有效分离电极材料，并有效地分离了阳极和天主电极与其他材料与其他材料的有效分离。关键点是，进行分离，而不会对阳极和阴极活动材料的形态和组成造成任何损害，以便可以直接重新生成分离的材料并返回到电池制造过程中。这增加了从提议的机器中获得的回收材料中获得的利润。这两个关键的分离过程使我们能够（1）提供一台潜在的小型机器，用于回收锂离子电池，以及（2）用一台机器回收所有类型的锂离子电池和不同的化学物质和制造商。但是，应针对每种电池进行调整机器操作参数。该机器的某些价值建议是（1）可以在任何位置快速部署，（2）它降低了支出锂离子电池的运输，处理和存储的成本，（3）它提高了回收效率，（4）它可以通过评估质量的Intervional ofder nsf的授权，并产生更有价值的成果优点和更广泛的影响审查标准。