USABC Awards WPI $1 Million
By bjsecino March 31, 2016
The United States Advanced Battery Consortium LLC (USABC), a collaborative organization of FCA US LLC, Ford Motor Company, and General Motors, has awarded a $1 million contract to a research team, directed by Yan Wang, at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) to support further development and scale-up of a novel process for recycling lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries and the production of new plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) battery cells using the recovered cathode material.
In laboratory studies, Wang and his team have been able to recycle up to 80 percent of the cathode materials from unsorted batteries using this process.
As part of the project funded by USABC, Wang and his team will use this reactor to make new cathode materials from materials recovered from used batteries.
In the study funded by USABC, Wang and his team will seek to scale up this closed-loop process, from the current lab scale, which produces coin cells, to a larger process that will be validated using 25 Ah cells made by a world-class battery manufacturer under subcontract to WPI. Wang says his research shows that his recycling process could cut the cost of cathode materials for vehicle batteries by more than 30 percent.
For more information, read the press release.
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