ACE Green Recycling enters into lithium-ion battery recycling research agreement with National Renewable Energy Laboratory
by CM staff
The Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) will focus on LFP battery recycling and Graphite recovery solutions from end-of-life lithium-ion batteries.
Photo: ACE Green Recycling.
GOLDEN — ACE Green Recycling (ACE) and the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have signed a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) to further develop and optimize ACE’s environment friendly and low cost lithium-ion battery recycling technology for recycling of graphite, lithium-iron phosphate (LFP) and other cathode active materials. This collaboration advances DOE’s deep commitment and investments in the development of sustainable, cost effective and environment friendly lithium-ion battery recycling in the United States.
Located in Golden, Colorado, NREL is a DOE national laboratory focused on renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development. As part of this mission, NREL is committed to the development and deployment of key breakthroughs for battery recycling technologies.
The volume of LFP batteries based electric vehicles is primed to grow significantly in coming years with major automobile manufacturers like Tesla and Ford starting to switch to LFP from Nickel and Cobalt based batteries due to its lower cost.
“Current hydrometallurgical recycling methods focus on extracting high-value materials from LFP batteries, such as lithium and copper,” said Andrew Colclasure, NREL. “To encourage a more holistic approach to recycling, we must demonstrate efficient processes that also recycle low-value materials such as graphite and iron-phosphate into commercially viable products. We look forward to working alongside our industry partners to advance low-cost recycling technologies to make the process more economical and environmentally friendly.”
ACE has developed its proprietary technology for recycling LFP batteries at bench scale which is currently undergoing commercial scaleup. Under this research agreement, NREL will assist ACE in evaluating commercialization of this process to recycle LFP batteries and to upcycle graphite to battery grade.
“We are excited to work with the talented team at NREL in our journey to commercialize our lithium-ion battery recycling technology and help the United States move towards sustainable domestic battery materials supply chain,” said ACE Green’s Co-founder and CTO, Vipin Tyagi.
