The Faraday Institution and NREL sign MOU in support of US UK joint battery research
Initial focus to reduce reliance on critical materials and enable recycling of lithium-ion batteries.
The Faraday Institution, UK and NREL, USA, have signed a memorandum of understanding in support of projects to develop and improve high-capacity batteries as well as new methods for battery materials.
The MOU was signed at the Royal Institution, during the first in a series of US UK workshops on electrochemical energy storage, by Professor Pam Thomas, Chief Executive Officer of the Faraday Institution in the UK, and Dr Peter F. Green, Deputy Laboratory Director for Science and Technology and Chief Research Officer of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).
Both the workshop and the MOU identify areas of mutual interest in areas of key battery research, such as to reduce reliance on critical materials in cathodes and to ensure recyclability of batteries.
'The depth and breadth of scientific knowledge across the US National Labs and the UK’s world-leading universities is what allows for this kind of innovative partnership,” said Professor Pam Thomas, CEO of the Faraday Institution. 'By strengthening the connections amongst the best battery research groups in the US and the UK, we will accelerate discovery and much needed breakthroughs in high-capacity cathode materials and develop recycling routes for lithium-ion batteries.'
'An important goal is to establish a sustainable supply chain for critical materials, such as cobalt, and to establish a lithium battery recycling ecosystem to recover and reintroduce these materials into the battery supply chain. Electrochemical energy storage is one of DOE’s priorities, and collaborative activities have been established between the national laboratories in this area,” said Peter F Green, Deputy Laboratory Director, Science and Technology, NREL. 'This MOU leverages the enormous and historic strengths of the research enterprise in energy storage in both the US and the UK to accomplish this.'
