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By 2035, 145 million electric vehicles will be plying the world’s roads, according to the International Energy Agency.
That’s a lot of batteries eating up cobalt, lithium, manganese, and other metals—and a lot of irreplaceable minerals headed for the dump when those batteries are spent.
But, speaking of eating, those minerals can be reclaimed: they can be eaten out of their batteries, then excreted, by bacteria.
The process, known as “bioleaching,” is common in mining, where bacteria eat minerals out of ores and recently has been put to use in reclaiming metals from electronic waste.
Now scientists at Coventry University’s Bioleaching Research Group have put bugs to work eating ingredients out of batteries from electric vehicles.
Different bacteria eat different materials, allowing the group to extract virtually every metal and mineral from a dead battery.
The researchers grow their non-toxic bugs in vats of liquid heated to 37°C (just under 100°F), often using carbon dioxide as a nutrient for their critters.
That process requires much less energy than the conventional method of melting the batteries and bathing them in toxic chemicals to claw back reusable materials.
The research team also has developed an electrochemical technique that draws the purified, reclaimed minerals out of the vats of solution.
TRENDPOST: Much of the attention given to problems surrounding the widespread adoption of electric vehicles has gone to concerns about installing enough charging stations in the right places.
Because it’s unlikely to rise to the level of sustained public attention for at least 10 years, relatively little thought has been devoted to the problem of all those batteries giving up in the 2030s and 2040s, especially as rare metals become more and more scarce.
The Coventry researchers not only have a solution waiting, but also have expanded the recycling or circular economy in the process.