Closing the Loop: Designing an Advanced Hydrometallurgical Lithium-Ion Battery Recycling Facility; How a Lack of Proper Waste Infrastructure Has Impeded the Momentum of Lithium-Ion Batteries

My technical and STS research projects focus on lithium-ion battery (LIB) recycling. Due to the growing demand for portable electronics, electric vehicles, and renewable energy storage systems, a large need for LIBs has arisen. This influx of LIBs has also generated a large amount of waste which contains valuable metals that can be recycled back into the manufacturing process. My technical project looks to create a LIB recycling plant and my STS paper dives into the consequences from a lack of a reliable LIB recycling process. Both projects look to inform each other to create a safe and effective LIB recycling facility.
My technical project seeks to create a process to recycle valuable metals from 200,000 tons of LIBs per year. The process revolves around hydrometallurgy, which involves dissolving shredded cathode and anode material in solution and selectively extracting and precipitating out the valuable metals as manganese carbonate, cobalt hydroxide, nickel hydroxide, and lithium carbonate. Once the metals are dissolved in solution, the aqueous stream goes through an impurity removal block, manganese extraction block, cobalt extraction block, nickel extraction block, and lithium extraction block. Each block contains many unit operations that include liquid-liquid extraction and precipitation. The process successfully extracts manganese, cobalt, and nickel but falls short in extracting lithium due to the large presence of sodium ions. The process is not economically viable and would require reducing the water and sodium in feed solutions to be economically viable.
My STS project explores the impact of not having a safe and reliable LIB recycling facility. The project focuses on the fire that occurred at Critical Mineral Recovery’s (CMR) recycling facility in Fredericktown, Missouri. The case is analyzed through the lens of Thomas Hughes’ Technological Momentum. Technological Momentum describes how a technology quickly gains power and influence over society as it grows. However, some aspects of a technology do not progress as quickly and develops “reverse salients” that impede a technologies momentum (Hughes, 2004). My argument revolves around how the lack of LIB recycling facilities act as a reverse salient and impedes the growth of LIBs through analyzing the societal impacts of a lithium-ion battery fire. My paper explores the environmental, health, and safety impacts that the LIB fire at CMR’s facility had on the community of Fredericktown and the operational and financial impacts this fire had on the company. The results of this analysis help identify the safety risks so that they can be implemented into the technical project.
Both projects help inform each other on how to properly dispose and recycle a LIB. My technical project outlines the entire recycling process and my STS project explores how to accomplish this safely by describing the dangers and consequences of improper disposal. Overall, both projects served as a technical and social analysis of the LIB recycling process.

School of Engineering and Applied Science

Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering

Technical Advisor: Eric Anderson

STS Advisor: Ben Laugelli

Technical Team Members: Benson Harlan, Gaurav Kapoor, Nikolai Kosinski, Connor Dight