I’m a lithium-ion traction battery specialist with a number of years experience in the high voltage battery world. In February 2022. I founded Batteryminers.

Electric vehicles are touted as the answer to the bad air quality problem. And so they should – the cars are zero emissions at the point of use. But where are the hidden footprints? The cost of a lithium battery is 73 kg CO2 per kWh of energy. Production of a single battery with a range of 40 kWh (like Nissan leaf) and 100 kWh (like Tesla) emits 2,920 kg and 7,300 kg of CO2, respectively. Now think what this means in terms of a Gigafactory making these batteries, and then consider what it means globally for the many, many Gigafactories popping up all over the place. This does not mean we should stop making electric vehicles; but it does mean there is an opportunity to reduce carbon footprints by millions of tonnes per year, simply by developing sensible, green end-of-life protocols. Smelting/recycling the batteries is not necessarily the solution. Incumbent pyrometallurgy allows us to harvest precious metals (like cobalt and nickel) and to recycle these, thereby reducing carbon footprints, but many materials (such as lithium, but also ancillary battery components like steel and plastic) end up in the slag. There is an opportunity to robotically, automatically, disassemble the battery pack and evaluate every single component for re-use. Remember: reducing and re-using can have a greater decarbonisation impact than recycling! There is an opportunity to create a circular economy like no other: by re-using components and cells, multiple times before we even recycle. Batteryminers vision is to be the first lithium-ion reuse and recycling plant in the UK.

Building the first lithium-ion battery reuse and recycling plant in the UK🇬🇧

GB

Arrival, a zero-emissions solution company, recruited me to set up a research laboratory from scratch. Although the company possesses significant resources, I was selected due to my experience with the Warwick Manufacturing Group and my highly innovative thinking. The project was a challenge because the laboratory was set up from scratch – the equipment and capabilities had to be carefully selected, based on my knowledge of the industry today and my understanding of how it will shift tomorrow.