Storage technologies: Long live the battery!

Batteries play an important role in both the mobility and energy transitions. Besides being a fundamental component of electric vehicles, they are used for purposes like stabilizing power grids and storing surplus electricity from renewable energy sources.

They are also a precious commodity, as they contain valuable raw materials that could become scarce in the coming years. Meanwhile, their extraction is often associated with environmental and social challenges. It therefore follows that batteries should be used for as long as possible, reused as often as possible and then recycled to reclaim as many raw materials as possible.

This is precisely what the EU’s recently adopted Battery Regulation aims to achieve. Among other things, it sets minimum requirements for durability and performance, as well as specifications for the collection and recycling of batteries. DKE is involved in the corresponding standardization process. It has received a standardization mandate from the EU on the topics of durability, performance and service life. This also includes the processes for preparing batteries for reuse and remanufacturing. The first standards should be ready by December 2025.

The regulation also sets new requirements for the recycling rates of raw materials. Starting in 2028, 90 percent of cobalt, copper and nickel and 50 percent of lithium will need to be recovered from batteries. In 2032, these proportions will rise to 95 percent and 80 percent, respectively.

There are also specifications regarding the proportion of recycled material that must be used in new batteries.

The recycling targets are ambitious – but for the most part realistic, says Johannes Betz, a senior researcher and expert on battery recycling at the Oeko-Institut: “Nickel, cobalt and copper have been successfully recovered for many years.”

The situation is different with lithium, where the process is more complicated. “Lithium is relatively reactive,” says Betz, who goes on to explain that existing processes have to be adapted accordingly or completely new ones developed. He says “every recycler” is currently working on this.

High safety requirements + small quantities = expensive logistics

Batteries contain toxic substances such as cobalt-nickel salts. Those that also include lithium pose a potential fire hazard if they are not handled carefully. Recycling processes are therefore subject to stringent safety requirements and these complicate logistics, among other things.

For transportation, batteries are divided into categories for which different safety concepts apply. A battery with external damage, for example, would be assigned to safety level red. The protection concepts include the energy storage systems being transported in special containers or in certain cases they are not allowed to be stacked. The requirements are so high and, at the same time, the quantities currently being produced are still so small that it may happen “that a truck drives around with a single EV battery”, as Betz explains. “And that makes logistics very inefficient and expensive.”

One solution would be to first pre-treat the batteries in smaller centers with short travel distances before transporting them to the actual recycling plant. A possible method for this would be to treat the batteries mechanically, for example by shredding them, in order to obtain a so-called black mass that can be transported safely. Betz assumes that with the expected ramp-up of battery recycling, these and other processes will continue to develop.

Recycling, reuse, second life: just don’t throw them in the bin

E-mobility in particular will ensure that more batteries need to be recycled or reused. From 2030, the Oeko-Institut expects “a significant increase in secondary raw material potential for important key raw materials such as lithium, cobalt, nickel and copper”. This is the conclusion of a report by the institute on the demand for strategic raw materials for the car and truck sector in Germany up to 2040. The report goes on to say that tapping into this potential could make a significant contribution to making Europe more independent in terms of key supplies of these raw materials in the medium and long term. At the same time, the authors of the report emphasize that an increasing number of companies with different processes are now active at various stages of the recycling chain and are investing in the expansion of necessary processing and recycling capacities. The entire industry is therefore in the starting blocks.

Those involved in the reuse of batteries are also waiting for the ramp-up of e-mobility and a growing market. Here, the aim is to recondition used batteries so that they can be reused in another application. For example, one very promising prospect is the use of traction batteries from electric vehicles as stationary power storage units. They can be used in private homes, but also in the commercial sector.

Car manufacturer Toyota, for example, recycles used nickel-metal hydride batteries from hybrid vehicles for use as stationary batteries. Together with a technology partner, Toyota has also developed an entire storage system made from used batteries. It has an output of one megawatt and a capacity of three megawatt hours, and is used in Japanese wind farms.

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