According to the Economic Times of India on April 2nd, scientists have developed a solvent that can extract useful elements from waste batteries, thereby helping to reduce the amount of electronic waste ultimately used in landfills. The purpose of research and development is to reduce the strict procedures in battery recycling and reduce the number of waste batteries that are buried.

Rice University in the United States uses environmentally friendly extremely low eutectic solvents to extract valuable elements from cathode metal oxides commonly used in lithium-ion batteries. The newly developed solvent is made from choline chloride and ethylene glycol in daily necessities, which can extract over 90% of cobalt in powdered mixtures. Although the cobalt content extracted from old batteries is relatively low each time, it is an effective method for recycling old batteries.

Pulickel Ajayan, a researcher at Rice University, said: "With the increasing demand for batteries in electric vehicles and other accessories in the future, waste rechargeable batteries, especially lithium-ion batteries, will gradually pose a threat to the environment." He believes that "recycling important metals such as cobalt is of great significance, and the limited supply of these metals is self-evident for energy storage equipment

Regarding this new battery recycling technology, Ajayan said, "Based on the current recycling status of plastic products, a comprehensive strategy is now needed to recycle the increasing number of waste batteries

The research results were published in the journal Nature Energy, and the first author of the article, KimmaiTran, said: "Before the new solvent, we tried to use acid. Although the effect was obvious, the acid was corrosive and not environmentally friendly. The cost of recycling lithium-ion batteries is generally high, and workers involved in related work also have risks." He also stated that the new solvent is made from additives in chicken feed and universal plastic precursors, Can dissolve various metal oxides.