Lithium-ion battery second life:pathways, challenges and outlook

Net zero targets have resulted in a drive to decarbonise the transport sector worldwide through electrification. This has, in turn, led to an exponentially growing battery market and, conversely, increasing attention on how we can reduce the environmental impact of batteries and promote a more efficient circular economy to achieve real net zero. As these batteries reach the end of their first life, challenges arise as to how to collect and process them, in order to maximise their economical use before finally being recycled. Despite the growing body of work around this topic, the decision-making process on which pathways batteries could take is not yet well understood, and clear policies and standards to support implementation of processes and infrastructure are still lacking. Requirements and challenges behind recycling and second life applications are complex and continue being defined in industry and academia. Both pathways rely on cell collection, selection and processing, and are confronted with the complexities of pack disassembly, as well as a diversity of cell chemistries, state-of-health, size, and form factor. There are several opportunities to address these barriers, such as standardisation of battery design and reviewing the criteria for a battery’s end-of-life. These revisions could potentially improve the overall sustainability of batteries, but may require policies to drive such transformation across the industry. The influence of policies in triggering a pattern of behaviour that favours one pathway over another are examined and suggestions are made for policy amendments that could support a second life pipeline, while encouraging the development of an efficient recycling industry. This review explains the different pathways that end-of-life EV batteries could follow, either immediate recycling or service in one of a variety of second life applications, before eventual recycling. The challenges and barriers to each pathway are discussed, taking into account their relative environmental and economic feasibility and competing advantages and disadvantages of each. The review identifies key areas where processes need to be simplified and decision criteria clearly defined, so that optimal pathways can be rapidly determined for each end-of-life battery

Large Scale Searches for Brown Dwarfs and Free-Floating Planets

Searches of large scale surveys have resulted in the discovery of over 1000 brown dwarfs in the Solar neighbourhood. In this chapter we review the progress in finding brown dwarfs in large datasets, highlighting the key science goals, and summarising the surveys that have contributed most significantly to the current sample.Comment: Accepted to appear in the Handbook of Exoplanets (Springer); Editors: Hans J. Deeg & Juan Antonio Belmont

Breaking it down:A techno-economic assessment of the impact of battery pack design on disassembly costs

The electrification of the transport sector is a critical part of the net-zero transition. The mass adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) powered by lithium-ion batteries in the coming decade will inevitably lead to a large amount of battery waste, which needs handling in a safe and environmentally friendly manner. Battery recycling is a sustainable treatment option at the battery end-of-life that supports a circular economy. However, heterogeneity in pack designs across battery manufacturers are hampering the establishment of an efficient disassembly process, hence making recycling less viable. A comprehensive techno-economic assessment of the disassembly process was conducted, which identified cost hotspots in battery pack designs and to guide design optimisation strategies that help save time and cost for end-of-life treatment. The analyses include six commercially available EV battery packs: Renault Zoe, Nissan Leaf, Tesla Model 3, Peugeot 208, BAIC and BYD Han. The BAIC and BYD battery packs exhibit lower disassembly costs (US$50.45 and US$47.41 per pack, respectively), compared to the Peugeot 208 and Nissan Leaf (US$186.35 and US$194.11 per pack, respectively). This variation in disassembly cost is due mostly to the substantial differences in number of modules and fasteners. The economic assessment suggests that full automation is required to make disassembly viable by 2040, as it could boost disassembly capacity by up to 600 %, while substantially achieving cost savings of up to US$190 M per year

Lithium-ion battery second life:pathways, challenges and outlook

Net zero targets have resulted in a drive to decarbonise the transport sector worldwide through electrification. This has, in turn, led to an exponentially growing battery market and, conversely, increasing attention on how we can reduce the environmental impact of batteries and promote a more efficient circular economy to achieve real net zero. As these batteries reach the end of their first life, challenges arise as to how to collect and process them, in order to maximise their economical use before finally being recycled. Despite the growing body of work around this topic, the decision-making process on which pathways batteries could take is not yet well understood, and clear policies and standards to support implementation of processes and infrastructure are still lacking. Requirements and challenges behind recycling and second life applications are complex and continue being defined in industry and academia. Both pathways rely on cell collection, selection and processing, and are confronted with the complexities of pack disassembly, as well as a diversity of cell chemistries, state-of-health, size, and form factor. There are several opportunities to address these barriers, such as standardisation of battery design and reviewing the criteria for a battery’s end-of-life. These revisions could potentially improve the overall sustainability of batteries, but may require policies to drive such transformation across the industry. The influence of policies in triggering a pattern of behaviour that favours one pathway over another are examined and suggestions are made for policy amendments that could support a second life pipeline, while encouraging the development of an efficient recycling industry. This review explains the different pathways that end-of-life EV batteries could follow, either immediate recycling or service in one of a variety of second life applications, before eventual recycling. The challenges and barriers to each pathway are discussed, taking into account their relative environmental and economic feasibility and competing advantages and disadvantages of each. The review identifies key areas where processes need to be simplified and decision criteria clearly defined, so that optimal pathways can be rapidly determined for each end-of-life battery

Structure and Dynamics of Molecular Hydrogen in the Interlayer Pores of a Swelling 2:1 Clay by Neutron Scattering

Neutron scattering has been used to reveal the structure and dynamics of molecular H₂ physisorbed into the two-dimensional pores of sparingly hydrated Ca-laponite clay. Thermal pretreatment of the clay at 415 K under vacuum yielded an interlayer composition in the 1.0–1.5 water molecules per Ca²⁺ cation range and provided a vacant gallery height of 2.82 Å. This value is very well matched to the diameter of molecular hydrogen and allows intercalation of H₂ up to the point where a liquid-like monolayer is formed within the clay. At a low coverage of 0.1 H₂ per cation the isosteric heat of adsorption is 9.2 kJ mol^–1. Quasielastic neutron scattering experiments conducted at 40–100 K reveal two populations of H₂ within the clay. First, we find molecules that are localized close to the partially hydrated Ca²⁺ cations. Second, we identify a more mobile liquid-like population whose motion is captured by jump diffusion. At 40 K, the H₂ diffusion coefficient is 2.3 ± 0.5 × 10^–5 cm² s^–1. This is an order of magnitude slower than the value extrapolated from bulk liquid H₂