In the next few years, millions of people will buy electric vehicles (EVs). All those cars and trucks will run on batteries containing metals such as cobalt, lithium and nickel.
But shortages of metals could potentially hobble the EV boom.
“Not a lot of people realise, we simply do not have enough of these critical materials at the moment mined around the world,” says Megan O’Connor, chief executive and co-founder of battery materials mining and recycling firm, Nth Cycle.
Her company has designed a means of extracting nickel and other metals from minced-up old batteries - so that these materials can be used again.
It’s called electro-extraction and it works by using an electrical current to separate metals out from crushed up battery waste known as “black mass”. – BC