The era of electric vehicles (EVs) is here. While the automotive industry faces its most significant transformation for a century, a brand-new facility at EMR is helping to deliver a circular economy for the batteries inside this evolving technology.
For Sanjay Kundu – the site’s High Voltage Manager – a career spent working on the development of EVs at Jaguar Land Rover has given him the skills, experience and motivation to play a key role in delivering a battery recycling facility capable of processing 2,000 tonnes of batteries per year.
Sanjay’s team assess batteries for reuse, repair and recycle and the biggest priority for Sanjay in the battery centre is operating an innovative facility while maintaining the highest safety standards. If the batteries are damaged, or not handled with sufficient care, they can create a, potentially serious incident.
“We've developed a unique setup to deal with emergencies that could occur while handling these high voltage batteries. Our teams can eject the battery from the workshop into a safe container, should a problem arise, and part of my role has been to design the hardware that allows for that.”
With the industry still in its infancy, EV battery recycling is yet to have agreed safety standards in place. But EMR has decades of experience under its belt operating as a market-leading metal recycler, meaning it already has the safety culture required to limit the risk of harm. EMR however is not going to use that as an excuse but will continue to invest in implementing safety regulations which set the standard in the industry.
Another challenge that Sanjay and his team face is the wide range of designs, materials and technology used by each manufacturer.
“It’s pretty common practice to put the fuel tank of a petrol vehicle in roughly the same place these days, but that kind of uniformity just doesn’t exist when it comes to EVs. This issue ranges from the location of isolation points of the battery packs, the HV connection points inside and outside the battery pack to the location of the battery itself within the vehicle.
Sanjay and his team hope that the new facility will provide an innovation hub where design teams from automotive manufacturers can work with EMR to ensure vehicles of the future are designed with recycling in mind.
“It stems all the way from the vehicle level, down to the module level. Having a uniform isolation point will be increasingly important. Uniform connection points in the battery pack itself, meanwhile, would allow our teams to conduct tests effectively and accurately without going too deep into the battery or require specialist equipment per battery type.”
Once batteries have arrived, been made safe and undergone analysis to understand how well they’re functioning, the goal is to firstly consider them for second life. EMR provide a range of options to give them a second useful life, including reuse or remanufacturing. Once those opportinites have been explored, the final option is to process the disassembled battery packs in specialist shredders to reclaim the valuable cobalt, nickel and lithium they contain.
“Many of these batteries will still be functional to quite a high level and, in this case, the most sustainable option will be to use the battery packs in a new car or as energy storage as the grid continues to transition to renewable electricity,” says Sanjay. “We’re in active discussions with energy storage companies to make this happen.”
With the site now fully operational, Sanjay is able to look to the future – a world where EVs represent the majority of vehicles on the road and the demand for battery recycling soars.
“In the years ahead, EMR will scale up its battery recycling operations and a lot of what we’re learning now will be applied to other facilities around the country. This site will continue to be a pilot plant so – as the market changes or technology improves – our team at EMR Birmingham will provide the research and expertise the industry requires.”
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