A technician tests ceramic separators for electric vehicle batteries in a lab at QuantumScape in San Jose, California. Photograph: Jason Henry/New York TimesAs the temperature climbed above 28C last weekend in my garden in Bray, I reflected on how the EU’s legislative programme ‘Fit for 55′ is gathering momentum to reduce carbon emissions by 55 per cent by 2030 compared to 1990.
The Ukrainian crisis has catalysed the climate crisis across Europe. But ironically, as Europe is moving rapidly to mitigate fossil fuel shortages, the moves to renewables and electric vehicles are facing their own shortages of the materials used to manufacture electronics and other parts, and especially storage batteries.
Refurbishment after insurance write-offs with inspection and testing before re-sale as replacement parts is certainly a direct approach, but makes a relatively small impact on the market. Alternatively, the materials used in an EV battery can be recovered, albeit with some difficulty, at the end of life. Once shredded, the higher-value metals within EV batteries can be recovered in a furnace with various acids, and then reused.