A review of the importance of recycling lithium-ion batteries for lithium, in view of impending electric vehicle industry

Rapport, 2012

Automobile electrification is one the technological developments, that will commence an earth friendly transport system, by mitigating emissions and hopefully lead to a less fossil fuel dependent society. With commercial success attained by models like Nissan’s leaf and Chevy’s Volt, the consumer market looks promising to assimilate vehicle electrification. At present these technologies include HEVs (hybrid electric vehicles), PHEVs (plug-in hybrid electric vehicles), EVs (complete electric vehicles). A closer look at these technologies will lead us to one of the crucial components of electric vehicles, the “batteries”. This component decides one of the key performance factors which is the energy storage and usage, which means it is the basis for public acceptability. The lithium-ion battery chemistries are chosen to fulfill this requirement. Although lithium constitutes of a small fraction of the complete battery weight, still its contin-ued availability in future is debated among many resource analysts.