Li-Ion batteries for EVs and PHEVs are scaring some people

Life-cycle of Li-Ion batteries

Li-Ion batteries are used to power small electronic devices and after their energy capacity falls below 50% they are usually thrown away and recycled. Li-Ion battery packs used in EVs and PHEVs however will not be recycled straight away, but rather reused in buildings and components for the power grid. Automotive industry already started cooperation with several power engineering companies in order to ensure the continued usage of battery packs from EVs and PHEVs. General predictions estimate that after 100,000 miles of driving EV and PHEV battery packs should still have 60-80% of energy capacity remaining. And GM is once again proving to be on the forefront of clean-tech innovations.

According to an official release by GM and their partner ABB, they will cooperate in reuse of used battery packs for: Renewable Energy Storage, Grid Load management, Back-up Power Supplies for Communities and Time of Use management.

In other words, they will take the battery pack out of your EV or PHEV and install it into Power grid, commercial or residential infrastructure turning it into some sort of giant two-way energy storage systems, ensuring a more stable and cleaner power grid.

Further down the line, after the battery pack energy capacity will no longer be sufficient even for the role of infrastructure energy support systems, these batteries will undoubtedly have to be recycled. And the good thing about that is that the Li-Ion battery components can be recycled up to 90%. Main metals are recovered in an alloy after the first melting stage and are further refined in the refinery plant, all the aluminum is valorized in the slag and reused in construction and/or aggregate for concrete, all carbon from electrodes is used as reductant (a reducing agent - a substance capable of bringing about the reduction of another substance as it itself is oxidized) in the melting step and all plastics are valorized and the energy from combustion is recovered to pre-heat the materials to be filled in the furnace and the air.

So, to conclude, although Li-Ion technology is still “young”, its life-cycle is expanding. Industries, the latest being the automotive (GM) and power engineering industry (ABB), are finding more and more uses for batteries and recycling standards are updated continuously.

All that said, the love of masses of mobile tech-addicts and all EV and PHEV aficionados is about to gain a whole new specter of fans – power engineers, construction engineers, architects and who knows, maybe even battery skeptics?