Every morning, Anicet Mbida gives us the very best in terms of innovation.
He tells this Friday how researchers at the University of Aalto in Finland accidentally found a way to increase the autonomy of the batteries, by simply recharging the lithium electrode.
Your innovation of the day could give a little air with the shortage that hangs around Lithium-Ion batteries. We found a way to resurrect an old battery, and turn it into a new battery.
As often, this is a discovery that was made completely by chance.
We owe it to researchers at Aalto University in Finland.
They were trying to find a way to increase the battery life.
And they realized that by simply recharging the lithium electrode, the battery regained almost the same capacity as if it were new.
A process they called "Re-lithiumization" which would give them a second life.
Does that mean that we could have two types of batteries on the market: new and recycled?
Exactly.
But it won't be like having a choice between new and retreaded tires.
We're not going to make the same cheaper batteries again.
That wouldn't interest many people.
What we expect is more autonomy.
The idea is instead to use this technique to recycle old batteries from cars or phones into large batteries to store solar energy.
We will be happy to pay them less.
Are the batteries already being recycled today?
Yes, we recycle them.
But above all to get rid of toxic materials properly and to recover certain metals which are becoming scarce, such as cobalt or lithium.
A cumbersome process: you have to grind the battery, melt the components, separate the metals… This is extremely expensive.
Whereas with this technique, one could keep whole pieces of the current drums and reduce the costs enormously.
This is very important, because between the shortage of raw materials and the explosion in demand, we would also like to be able to count on recycled components.