Good news! One of the main drawbacks to the electric vehicle sector has been the impact of mining new materials to create the necessary batteries for the industry. In what could be a breath of fresh air for the EV community, a new study has shown that recycled lithium-ion batteries perform just as good as - and sometime better than - new batteries.

Tests performed by Yan Wang, a professor of mechanical engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, have shown that recycled battery cathodes showed a more porous microscopic structure that is actually better suited for lithium ions to interact with. The energy densities of the recycled cathodes and new cathodes were similar with the recycled components showing up to a 53% longer lifecycle.

For now, the studies have not been done on electric vehicles directly but the tests were done at commercially viable scales, making this approach possible for an industry that desperately use more battery innovation.

Source: IEEE