Ghostbusters for Batteries
Steve Sloop · OSTI OAI (U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information) · 2022
End-of-life lithium-ion batteries are Class 9 hazardous materials due to flammability of electrolyte and lithium. It is why the transportation cost ranges from $2.49/kg - $7.20/kg for civilian and defense disposition, that is over 50% of the cost of recycling. Damaged batteries have many times greater transportation cost. Dead batteries require costly bunker-storage that occupies real estate and personnel that could be used for productive purposes. Insurance is expensive and accidents are almost assured even with relatively low volumes of waste. Tipping fees on top of this adds an unpredictable, inflated cost for the EV industry, which is very cost sensitive for survival. Transforming lithium-ion into a class of non-hazardous material reduces transportation cost to $0.10/kg, providing a value opportunity of ~$2/kg to ~$6/kg for civilian and defense disposition respectively. OnTo can eliminate the risk of thermal runaway with a brief, non-toxic treatment to eliminate flammability and toxic risks in most any battery, except Pb, which is inherently toxic. With the service, OnTo also can provide rigorous certainty that cells are rendered inert. OnTo’s patented and patent pending deactivation technology improves the cost and safety for disposition of end-of-life lithium-ion battery packs and cells. Deactivation uses non-toxic chemical processing to remove inherent risks in lithium-ion and other primary and secondary chemistries. The technology has been demonstrated and developed through DOE contract with OnTo Technology LLC (EE0008475).