24M Technologies has announced Liforever, the latest entry in its 24M battery technology set. Unique to its SemiSolid manufacturing platform, Liforever is a direct material recycling methodology for EV and ESS batteries. This methodology reduces the environmental impact of lithium-ion batteries by making it efficient and cost-effective to recover and reuse battery materials, including lithium iron phosphate (LFP), in process and at end-of-life.
Conventional lithium-ion cells use expensive pyrometallurgical and hydrometallurgical recycling processes that form black mass e-waste, which can damage the structure of anode and cathode materials. Because of this damage and the high-cost of the process, less expensive materials such as LFP are typically not recycled. Instead, more expensive metals – most commonly nickel, manganese and cobalt – are extracted from the black mass in their base metal form and reintroduced to the active material production process.
24M says that Liforever offers an alternative solution to this scenario by keeping the active materials in their original form and not creating a black mass. This enables the low-cost recycling of all active materials from the anode (graphite) and cathode (NMC, LFP, NCA, and more). After recovery, the active materials undergo a low-cost cleaning and re-lithiation to reclaim their original capacity.
The Liforever recycling methodology is designed to be compatible with both current and anticipated future recycling regulations, allowing cell manufacturers, EV OEMs, and ESS operators to future-proof their battery technology. At the same time, because the 24M SemiSolid process is chemistry agnostic, Liforever will also be able to support next-generation batteries of all chemistry types – enabling further longevity for the technology.
