Partner contribution: Mecasonic ; Expert : Alexandre Couleau
EVs BATTERY
The current production plan will multiply the total production by 7 in 2030 (700 GW/h in 2022).
As a reminder, one GW/h represents 10000 to 20000 cars units – a standard middle-range car has 3000 cells. If you are not a huge fan of mathematics, this is A LOT.
In 2023, the World capacity for recycling is 300GW/h, which is 40% of current production. This market will represent only in the US market 13 billion $ in 2030.
Currently, the process of recycling -hydrometallurgical or pyrometallurgical methods -produces three main raw materials:
– metals (lithium, nickel, cobalt, potentially manganese and copper)
– plastics
– “black mass”
One major difficulty in this process is the essential step of discharging the battery of every energy residue for safety reasons – also a potential of energy production, as a virtuous circle.
The other is separating those materials to re-use them in a new production.
Here is where ultrasonic will be helpful. This technology, as a main advantage in comparison to others, is the average cycle time: more often around a second. The technology knowledge of Mecasonic, starting from 1969, has mostly been used in the assembly process of plastic parts. We know also the advantages and disadvantages of this technology, principally the impossibility of having a second welding near a previous one: the transmission of vibration will certainly dismantle the first one. And here again, we can use this weakness in assembly as a power in disassembly!
The ability of vibration to separate the original welding can be an asset to help the recycling industry scale up to match the requirements for tomorrow.
The ultrasonic can be effective in those operations:
– Ultrasonic cavitation for cathode separation
– Ultrasonic leaching of minerals
– Ultrasonic delamination
As always, time is money, and ultrasonic is a perfect solution.
I will highly recommend the following link for more information about using ultrasonic in the recycling process (article from The Royal Society of Chemistry): https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2021/gc/d1gc01623g

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