Recovery of valuable metals from electronic waste

Project description:

Electric vehicles are a key technology to decarbonise the road sector, which has been further pushed by several governments (e.g. France, UK and India) by banning the sales of fuel-powered cars. In fact, it is estimated there will be 500,000 tonnes of spent Li-ion batteries in China alone by 2020. Those numbers are a concern for environmental perspective due to both the scarcity of key materials in Li-ion batteries and the innate toxicity to the landfill. Nevertheless, this opens up new research venues since it is estimated that more than 400 million in euros could be recovered from four key materials present in Li-ion batteries, i.e. cobalt, nickel, aluminium and lithium.  

Thus, developing a sustainable metal recovery and in turn add infinite lifetimes to those materials is paramount, following what is called circular economy.

Currently, those metals are recovered using hydrometallurgical methods based on their extraction using highly corrosive solvents which also creates a large amount of waste. Therefore, in this project we will investigate and understand the metal cation species existing in solution so that we can move towards an environmentally sustainable recovery route using advanced and cost effective solvents. To study these cation species, this project will use a combination of spectroscopic techniques, such as UV/Vis, FTIR and NMR. Morphological and chemical state of the materials recovered will also be analyzed using SEM, XPS and ICP. This project will provide training in a range of powerful analytical techniques as well as the application of these to an important and rapidly growing research area.