Lithium-Ion Battery Recycling Prize

Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced the four winners of Phase III of the Lithium-Ion Battery Recycling Prize, a multiphase competition that incentivized American entrepreneurs to develop and demonstrate processes that, when scaled, have the potential to profitably capture 90% of all discarded or spent lithium-based batteries in the United States for eventual recovery and reintroduction of key materials into the U.S. supply chain. 

Li Industries of Blacksburg, Virginia, Renewance of Chicago, Illinois, Smartville of San Diego, California, and Titan Advanced Energy Solutions of Salem, Massachusetts, were named as the four Phase III winners and will share the $2 million prize evenly. Over its three phases, the competition awarded $5.5 million to 15 teams around the country.  

As demand for consumer products such as electric vehicles, cell phones, and tablets rises, the recycling of critical materials from spent and discarded lithium-ion batteries will be essential to reducing product costs and America’s reliance on foreign component sources.  

"The prize model catalyzes research and development and empowers American ingenuity,” said U.S. Deputy Secretary of Energy David Turk. “Public partnerships like the Battery Recycling Prize are critical to enhancing our national leadership in the energy marketplace.” 

Read more in the DOE announcement.

One of the core challenges of lithium-ion battery recovery is the cost of safely collecting, sorting and transporting the spent batteries to reuse applications or recycling facilities. Smartville is addressing this challenge through the development of heterogenous unifying battery (HUB) facilities at distributed locations for advanced screening and conditioning. Smartville’s HUB facilities will create value within the reverse logistics supply chain by cost-effectively qualifying used batteries to enable safe, reliable, and economic repurposing of these assets for utility-scale and customer-sited energy storage applications prior to ultimate end-of-life recycling.

“Our HUB system meets the economic demands of reverse logistics by consolidating the lithium-ion battery collection to distributed locations, minimizing the transportation costs and risks within the supply chain,” explained Smartville Team Captain Mike Ferry. 

Smartville is developing a streamlined process for screening, conditioning, and repurposing operations at the HUB facilities, aided by Renewance and Spiers New Technology as collection, logistics, and recycling partners. Any batteries with consistent remaining life will be captured and integrated by Smartville for second-use applications. The HUB facilities ensure efficiency in reverse logistics by serving as a one-stop location for lithium-ion battery collection, sorting, storage, conditioning, second-life reuse, and recycling.

For the third and final phase of the Lithium-Ion Battery Recycling Prize, Smartville is conducting a pilot demonstration of the Modular Assembly Battery (MOAB) systems, an essential component to repurposing spent lithium-ion batteries for stationary storage. The MOAB, enabled by its proprietary power electronics and balancing control, provides a universal platform for assessing and repurposing battery packs of different makes and models, and serves as the scalable building block for Smartville’s hybrid repurposing and recycling HUB facility. Within the next five years, Smartville plans to deploy two HUB facilities in the U.S. to provide services in locations with high lithium-ion battery recycling needs, achieving annual battery processing capacity of over 25,000 metric tons. Whether or not the batteries are repurposed, the HUB facility will be able to track and recycle batteries at the end of life to meet DOE’s rate of recycling target of 90%. 

For more information on the Smartville HUB facility and MOAB building block, contact Mike Ferry at .

With the development of Renewance Connect, a purpose-built digital platform for tracking and managing batteries throughout their lifecycle, the Renewance team is putting the power to recycle back into the hands of lithium-ion battery consumers. Through Renewance Connect, parties with end-of-life batteries have convenient access to reuse and recycling services from qualified parties that can recover spent lithium-ion batteries in the most competitive, eco-friendly, and regulatory compliant manner. In addition, the platform allows users to prioritize cost, timing, and environmental impact of the potential recovery solutions.

"Renewance Connect provides efficient end-to-end reverse logistics for reuse and recycling through optimized on-demand services," explained Renewance Team Captain Thomas Newhall "This strategy maximizes recovery rates in a fully traceable, environmentally sound, and cost-effective manner."

To accomplish this vision, Renewance Connect leverages the existing infrastructure alongside cradle-to-grave asset tracking to optimize the recycling supply chain. The Renewance team works with stakeholders throughout the supply chain, such as battery manufacturers, collection services, state-of-health assessment, and reuse or recycling organizations. This unique cradle-to-grave strategy also informs industrial battery owners of their asset retirement obligations at the beginning of the battery lifecycle. 

In Phase III of the Lithium-Ion Battery Recycling Prize, Renewance focuses on further platform development and validation efforts for stationary storage and electric vehicle applications. Renewance is collaborating with Argonne National Laboratory and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory to refine the platform's environmental impact and reuse value analysis. When fully scaled, Renewance Connect will be able to track the number of lithium-ion batteries active in the marketplace, as well as the recovery rate over time. 

To learn more about the Renewance Connect, contact Thomas Newhall at .

On Wednesday, August 4, 2021, four of the Phase III participating teams accepted an invitation to present in a Prize-focused webinar hosted by the North Carolina Department of Energy Quality (NC DEQ). This voluntary networking event allowed teams to present their concept solutions and receive feedback from stakeholders and industry experts to inform their plans for the Phase III Final Submission.

We would like to thank NC DEQ and the four featured teams for joining this collaborative webinar to further develop these concepts in support of the U.S. Department of Energy goal to capture 90% of all discarded or spent lithium-based batteries in the U.S. for eventual recovery of key materials for re-introduction into the U.S. supply chain. 

The efficient recycling of lithium-ion batteries will rely on strong market infrastructure. Clarios' existing lead-acid battery collection network provides the necessary backbone to ensure this recycling process is sustainable and enduring. The "Powering the Future" team assembled by Clarios includes industry partners and experts to implement safe handling of spent and discarded lithium-ion batteries. 

"Clarios is uniquely positioned to be a player in the lithium recycling economy," said Power the Future team captain Michael Sendelbach. "Our solution highlights how our commitment to sustainable life-cycle management can provide a scalable answer for end-of-life and second-life battery solutions."

Clarios plans to implement a closed-loop economy through five distinct stages: batter collection, sorting and diagnoses, separation and packaging, transportation, and recycling. At each step in this process, the team has partnered with industry experts to provide state-of-the-art solutions, including Global Battery Solutions, Admiral Instruments, Environmental Restoration, and more. By coordinating between organizations, Clarios can adapt its process to distinct subgroups of end-of-life lithium-ion batteries. 

The Power the Future solution implemented a successful trial run in Phase II of the Lithium-Ion Battery Recycling Prize. In Phase III, the team plans to incorporate hardware and packaging solutions for a pilot-scale demonstration. In addition, Clarios will be collaborating with Voucher Service Providers from the American-Made Network to expand cost modeling tools to guide future implementation. 

To learn more about Powering the Future, contact or .