This $300,000 National Science Foundation (NSF) Early-Concept Grants for Exploratory Research (EAGER) award, provided under the NSF Engineering program (CFDA 47.041), supports a project by Florida State University to develop a novel magnetic-assisted recycling process for critical metals found in spent lithium-ion batteries (LIBs).
The project seeks to overcome the limitations of current LIB recycling methods, which are often costly, energy-intensive, and environmentally harmful. Through experimental testing and multiphysics simulations, the researchers aim to engineer a green and efficient magnetic separation technique to recover critical metals like lithium, nickel, cobalt, and manganese from end-of-life LIBs. The expected outcomes include a mechanistic understanding of the principles governing magnetic-assisted transport of LIB metals and a validated magnetophoresis model to accelerate the development of magnetic separation technologies for LIB recycling. This research has potential applications beyond LIBs, such as in drug delivery, protein separation, and water purification.