Nottingham Trent University joins EV battery reuse research

Nottingham Trent University, UK, is part of a £4.5mln research project to find a way to recycle or reuse electric vehicle batteries.

This project is designed to prevent battery waste going to landfill, which is reportedly up to 9Mt a year.

A £582,000 grant has been awarded to Nottingham Trent's Advanced Design and Manufacturing Engineering Centre as part of the European-wide REBELION project - which aims for electric vehicle Lithium-ion batteries to get a 'second-life' or be recycled more efficiently.

REBELION wants to develop technology to sort batteries into those that can be reused and those that can be recycled, and find automated methods for dismantling. It also hopes to create a safety protocol for recycling and reuse, standardised labelling, and a systematic analysis of the proposed models.

The University says that research shows that with reconditioning, the majority of these types of batteries could last another 10 years after their capacity has fallen below 75%. The majority are sent to landfill and many first-generation electric vehicles will soon reach their end of life.