Saint Jean Carbon, a carbon science company with interests in graphite and lithium mining, plans to join with a battery manufacturing partner to build a full-scale lithium-ion battery using recycled material from an EV power pack and upcycled anode material.

The project aims to show that battery materials can be re-used over and over again, reducing the demand for continued mining. The company will use proprietary systems to dismantle and separate the battery components, and will construct two identical cells, one with new material and one with upcycled materials. Both cells will be tested to more than 10,000 cycles to compare their performance.

“We have always had concerns about the significant amount of raw materials needed for lithium-ion batteries,” said Saint Jean Carbon CEO Paul Ogilvie. “Environmentally sound energy storage devices [are] not so environmentally friendly when you dispose of them.”

Source: Saint Jean Carbon via Green Car Congress