Toyota has obtained an aid of 4. 5 million dollars from the United States Department of Energy (DOE) to make electric cars batteries more durable.
The funding comes from ARPA-E’s CIRCULAR program, which focuses on creating a sustainable, domestic supply chain for EV batteries.
The project, directed through the Toyota Research Institute of North America (Trina), aims to deal with one of the greatest challenges of the EV industry: What do we do with old batteries?
Currently, disassembling batteries and determining the portions that can be reused or recycled is a slow, manual process. Toyota, in partnership with Oak Ridge National Laboratory (Ornl), the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (Nrel) and Baker Hughes’ Waygate Technologies, is bidding to replace this.
The allocation will focus on solving the main bottlenecks in the battery supply chain cycle, namely automating battery disassembly, knowledge-based battery sorting and combating the opposite degradation of cell degradation. Think of it as a high-tech recycling medium where a used battery component is thoroughly evaluated.
This technique could simply extend the life of valuable battery materials, thereby reducing waste and the desire to exploit new resources. The ultimate goal? A brief for what Toyota calls the “3R facility of the future”: a position to reduce, reuse and recycle batteries on a commercial scale.
Nik Singh, a senior scientist at TRINA and principal investigator of this task, says the task may change the way the industry approaches battery recycling:
This task and programme will highlight ways for everyone to rethink their strategy towards battery circularity and prioritise extending their useful life, facilitating their reuse and reducing their waste.
The team’s plan includes:
The reward? Batteries that are reused and renewed first: recycling becomes the resource.
Marm Dixit, who is responsible for ORNL’s contributions, stresses the environmental advantages. “By extending the life of the battery components, we decrease their overall emissions consistent with the kilometer. This is for the role that electric cars can play in the energy transition,” Dixit said.
NREL’s role will involve cutting-edge tech like machine learning and imaging using nano computed tomography to analyze the health and lifespan of batteries quickly. Baker Hughes’ Waygate Technologies will bring its expertise in non-destructive testing with advanced imaging systems.
Why is Toyota getting so much when they’ve obviously been shown not to even need to make electric vehicles?
Like I’d seen in Big Oil, I guess, but. . . this surprises me.
Toyota’s Battery Lifecycle Solutions (BLS) team plans to take those inventions from the lab to real-world applications. “By applying the inventions from this project, our goal is to create a framework that only reduces battery waste, but also improves the circularity of our battery source chain,” said Sarah Kennedy, director of BLS, who is leading the generation of implementation in the market. .
Read more: EV batteries may last up to 40% longer than expected – Stanford
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Michelle Lewis is an editor at Electrek and a staffer at DRONEDJ, 9TO5MAC, and 9TO5GOOGLE. She lives in White River Junction, Vermont. In the past he has worked for Fast Company, The Guardian, Deep News, Time and others. Message Michelle on Twitter or Michelle@9to5mac. com. Check out his non-public blog.