Li-ion battery separator material recovery and utilisation
Project overview
Project title
Lithium-ion battery separator material recovery and utilisation
Project description
The rapid adoption of lithium-ion batteries (LIB) in electric vehicles and energy storage globally is generating a significant volume of waste end-of-life lithium-ion batteries. The battery separator, 5% of the battery mass, is a soft plastic in every LIB cell to prevent short circuits. The current state-of-the-art LIB recycling plant primarily focuses on recycling the precious metal from waste LIBs. The separator waste is either landfilled or burnt, which translates to about 10,000 ton of toxic emissions per year from each single standard recycling plant. The situation can only get worse with the increasing uptake of LIBs.
Sodium battery is a promising alternative for energy storage if precious metal prices for making LIB remain high. This Project will mainly focus on the recovery of LIB separator material and explore economic applications of the recovered separator materials, such as turning it into high-value hard carbon for making sodium battery anode material.
The Project will help increase the material recovery rate in the LIB recycling process and reduce waste and carbon footprint in the battery value chain. By returning waste to battery manufacturing, the project will make the battery value chain more sustainable. The technology may be transferable for transforming other types of soft plastic into high-demand valuable products.
If the Project encounters major technical difficulty in pursuing a recovery separator and making useful products from recovered separator material, the parties may agree to shift the Project to recovery and utilisation of other valuable material from LIB.
Supervisory team
University
| Name of university supervisor | Deepak Dubal |
| Name of university | Queensland University of Technology |
| Email address | deepak.dubal@qut.edu.au |
| Faculty | Faculty of Science |
CSIRO
| Name of CSIRO supervisor | Yanyan Zhao |
| Email address | yanyan.zhao@csiro.au |
| CSIRO Business Unit | Energy |
Industry
| Name of industry supervisor | Jiajin Che |
| Email address | jiajin.che@xceltech.com.au |
| Name of business/organisation | Xcel Sodium |
Further details
| Primary location of student | Queensland University of Technology, QLD |
| Industry engagement component location | Xcel Sodium, NSW |
| Other locations | CSIRO Clayton, VIC |
| Ideal student skillset | Bachelor’s degree in chemistry, chemical engineering, material science or engineering or relevant fields. Honors student or master by research student preferred. |
| Application Close Date | Open until position filled |