As everyone knows, battery prices are plummeting and manufacturing volumes are soaring, whether for EVs or for grid-connected storage. And everyone knows there's a problem: only 5% of lithium-ion batteries are recycled. The rest go to landfill, right? Wrong. This week's guest on Cleaning Up is the world's preeminent expert on battery recycling. Hans Eric Melin is the Founder and Managing Director of Circular Energy Storage.
Circular Energy Storage is a London-based data collection and analytics consultancy focused on the lithium-ion battery end-of-life market. They help companies and organisations in the entire battery value chain to take better decisions in everything that relates to reuse and recycling of lithium-ion batteries. They do this by continuously collecting, analysing and publishing data from all parts of the value chain worldwide and by working actively with customers in their strategy and business development.
Please like, subscribe and leave a review. Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook or Instagram, and sign up for the Cleaning Up newsletter at cleaninguppod.substack.com.
Links and more:
Circular Energy Storage: circularenergystorage.com/about
Hans' LinkedIn post on the false narratives around lithium-ion battery recycling rates: www.linkedin.com/pulse/5-rate-other-untruths-battery-recycling-hans-eric-melin-m5lde
Hans' more extensive research report explaining the real rates: www.energimyndigheten.se/globalassets/forskning--innovation/overgripande/state-of-the-art-in-reuse-and-recycling-of-lithium-ion-batteries-2019.pdf
The 2023 Battery Materials Review Yearbook, featuring a chapter authored by Hans: www.batterymaterialsreview.com/products/
The 2016 paper Hans mentioned, featuring the 95% landfill rate: link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11837-016-1994-y
00:00 - Introduction
01:37 - Battery Recycling Mythbusting
10:27 - Where did 5% come from?
17:36 - What is the collection rate?
24:10 - EV battery collection
27:36 - Recovery rates
33:22 - Circularity
39:33 - EV second life
47:09 - Alternative uses
52:31 - Reusing cells
56:13 - How much is a battery worth?
01:04:10 - Overcapacity
01:11:58 - Outro