Episode 29: Battery Recycling: The Key to Achieving Electrification Goals with Joe Day from Li-Cycle
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Recycling lithium-ion batteries is the key to achieving electrification goals. In this episode, Tad and Julianna sit down with Joe Day, Commercial Manager – Midwest and Northeast Regions at Li-Cycle, to discuss how Li-Cycle manages batteries at the end of their life, the type of batteries they take at their facilities, how much lithium, nickel, and cobalt are able to be recovered and integrated back into new batteries, how the battery recycling process works, and how Li-Cycle collects their batteries. We also answer an audience question at the end of the episode about extended producer responsibility.
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There is a tremendous amount of activity when it comes to electrification and the use of battery technology to power cars and equipment. Tell us about how Li-Cycle will manage the batteries at the end of their life?
“You're spot on, Tad. Lithium batteries are all over the place. They’re in our pockets, work stations, garages and even out in public utility settings helping to power the grid on a very large scale. It was really imperative that companies like Li-Cycle start to address the issue of how to properly resource such a rapidly growing industry when it comes to lithium powered machines and devices. So now with all that being said, a couple years ago, I was still largely skeptical about the whole electrification movement, especially when it came to EVs. Because yes, it is environmentally friendly by comparison to fossil fuels.
However, the resourcing of the materials necessary for the batteries was really lagging. That's where the recycling of those batteries really becomes imperative to the whole electrification movement. The way that we manage the batteries is through what we call Spoke & Hub bus set up where we have Spoke locations that are receiving batteries. In North America we have four locations so far set up in Ontario, Western New York, Arizona, and Alabama. Those Spoke locations are where the shredding takes place. From that shredding process is a derivative known as black mass. That black mass is where all of the valuable metals will reside that need to go back into the manufacturing of lithium batteries such as lithium itself, nickel and cobalt.
Something we're very excited about is the Hub that we're building which will essentially be a refinery that will enable us to put all those metals back into the supply chain. Then going back to the Spoke, looking at that at a more granular level, we use what is known as a hydrometallurgical process which is essentially a wet shred. That wet shred is vital in terms of safety to prevent any sort of sparking, fires or what we call in the industry, thermal events that may otherwise occur. But with that, it's a perfectly safe approved method for shredding. It produces that black mass which is proving to be increasingly vital and valuable to the electrification movement.”
There is only so much lithium, cobalt, and nickel on the planet and much of it comes from countries like Russia and China. Is the battery recycling process able to recover all of those metals and can they be integrated back into new batteries?
“Great questions, great points there. Mining is still active and what we're doing is essentially in an effort to mitigate against new mining operations and some of the environmental impacts that we see from that. So with that being the case, what we're attempting to do is really close the loop and put all those metals back into the supply chain, those primary metals within a battery being lithium, nickel and cobalt. The recovery rate that we're looking for out of those metals in particular is up to 95%. Where then those will go back into the supply chain as battery grade materials, which is vital. This is in an effort to mitigate against some new mining operations that would otherwise be necessary for the electrification that we're talking about, but it's not a total alternative to it. All we can do is recycle the batteries that are out there, but there are gonna be so many more batteries that are manufactured over the next several years to make this electrification movement happen the way that a lot of us are envisioning it.”
You Talked about the hub and spoke system you have. Can you tell us more about the hub facility you are building?
So when it comes to battery life, there is a lot of variability there depending on the conditions in which the battery is used and also the state of charge. A rule of thumb I've heard about recently is you want to run your battery between 20% and 80%. If you let it run much lower than that with great regularity or you can run it all the way down to zero, then that's not good for the battery's long term health. Then if you leave it fully charged at a hundred percent for too long as well, then that can have a negative impact too. So there are a few things that us as end users can do to bring more life out of the battery. We are seeing improvement when it comes to manufacturing of batteries and the overall performance of them and the longevity as well.
There is great range in terms of what you can expect out of a battery. Anywhere from a few months, if you totally abuse the battery or several years like we're seeing out of EVs where those can go for up to eight to 10 years in a lot of cases. Now what's going to be interesting then as we receive this variety of material ranging again from small format batteries and cell phones all the way on up to large packs, is that material is shredded at our recycling Spokes. Those Spokes will ultimately feed the recycling Hub that we're building in Western New York. It will actually be at the Eastman Kodak Business Park in Rochester.
It's going to be able to take on all of the capacity that we have at our recycling Spokes, which ranges between 5,000 and 10,000 metric tons per year at each Spoke. Then it's going to be built to take on even more Spoke produced black mass as we continue to add Spoke locations and scale further into North America. Once the Hub is commissioning in late 2023, it will make Li-Cycle the first company of its kind to have both shredding operations for batteries within North America as well as a refinery which is essentially what the Hub is going to be, where we're going to be able to separate all the valuable metals, again, lithium, nickel, cobalt and all that's going to go back into the supply chain. It’s going to allow us to really close the loop and lead to a better economic and sustainability scenario for both us and our customers.”
ABOUT joe day
Joining Li-Cycle in early 2022, Joe has over 20 years of experience in the universal waste recycling industry with various business development and leadership roles. Today his primary focus is on scaling Li-Cycle’s already impressive and rapid growth by establishing and cultivating relationships with various accounts and strategic partners across several vertical markets. Joe holds a bachelor's degree in political science from Valparaiso University and a professional certification from the University of Wisconsin. In his free time, he enjoys cycling and golfing, as well as sightseeing and travel with his family.
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