In relation to the two-year project duration, FREE4LIB partners met on October 16 and 17 at Fraunhofer IWKS facilities in Alzenau (Germany). During these two days, the project follow-up meeting was held, in which the advances and results achieved up-to-date were shared, as well as a workshop led by the Universität Graz, focused on the “Battery Passport” and the social life cycle assessment (S-LCA).
After this first half of the project, the good progress of the activities is notable, moving forward according to the established program and the defined objectives. Some of the most promising results can be highlighted: the development and creation of a digital model of the Battery Passport, the design of mechanisms for assessing the health status of batteries, the use of robotics for the dismantling of lithium-ion batteries (LiB), the optimization of battery cells and the characterization of key materials, and the advances in the pretreatment, sorting, recycling and reuse of metal and polymeric battery parts.
In the meanwhile, at Lurederra, efforts in recent months have resulted in the use of recycled materials extracted from lithium batteries as raw material for use in nanomaterial production using Flame Spray Pyrolysis (FSP) equipment. In addition, NMC-type particles with promising properties for the preparation of cathodes have been obtained. To conclude the meeting, the partners had the opportunity to visit the Fraunhofer IWKS facilities, not only in Alzenau, but also in Hanau, where they were able to observe “in situ” the operation of the electrohydraulic fragmentation machine, used to obtain the “black mass” powder, as well as different additional equipment related to recycling processes.
