Nanocellulose can make the recycling of batteries up to 30 % more efficient shows the research by Billy Hoogendoorn, WWSC at KTH. By using aqueous electrodeposition cadmium with a purity of over 99% could be selectively extracted, while leaving the nickel in the solution. By using aqueous electrodeposition, cadmium with a purity of over 99% could be selectively extracted, while leaving the nickel in the solution.
“This work represents an exciting initial step in how nanocellulose can be utilized to impact the efficiency and selectivity of metal recycling processes, and we believe that there are incredibly many more aspects that can be evaluated,” says Billy Hoogendoorn to kth.se.
In the research they found very small additions of half a gram of cellulose fibers per liter of liquid lead to the formation of large tree-shaped dendrites, visible to the naked eye.
“The increase in dendrite formation means that the amount of material recovered from the aqueous solutions can increase significantly, up to 30 per cent,” says Billy Hoogendoorn.
The research has, among other things, been carried out on backup batteries at Swedish hospitals. The results were recently published in Nanoscale Advances.
Hoogendoorn, B. W. and Karlsson, O. and Xiao, X. and Pandey, A. and Mattsson, S. E. and Ström, V. and Andersson, R. L. and Li, Y. and Olsson, R. T (2023) Cellulose nanofibers (CNFs) in the recycling of nickel and cadmium battery metals using electrodeposition, Nanoscale Advances, DOI: doi.org/10.1039/D3NA00401E
Billy Hoogendorn defended his PhD thesis in June 2023. Supervisor was Associate Professor Richard Olsson. Find the thesis at https://lnkd.in/d9nhrUtZ
