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I am a PhD student in chemistry at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg working with Associate Professor Martina Petranikova on direct recycling of spent LiFePO4 (LFP) batteries. I started my PhD in November 2023 after having studied at Chalmers for the previous five years. My background is in chemical engineering/engineering physics with a master in materials chemistry. The research project is a part of a larger project in collaboration with industrial partners such as Volvo Cars. 

Multinational efforts to promote electromobility are driving the Li-ion battery (LIB) market towards a lasting exponential growth. At the same time, batteries from older electric cars are reaching their end-of-life and the industry is searching for a viable recycling technology to take care of the battery waste. Present recycling strategies are not able to save the valuable materials from the batteries at acceptable levels and for acceptable revenues. In my project, spent LIBs from mild hybrid cars with the LFP cathode chemistry are recycled using the increasingly popular approach of direct recycling. Rather than shredding the batteries into black mass which is then treated chemically, I separate out the cathode material only and attempt to restore it chemically into near-virgin quality by relithiation using different molten lithium salts. The main objective is to develop a feasible method of direct cathode regeneration, from spent battery module to regenerated cathode active material that can directly be used for the production of new battery cathodes.