Project Grant DESC0023945

This Cooperative Agreement from the National Science Foundation's Engineering program provides $976,200 to Nth Cycle Inc. to develop an electrochemical separation device for recycling cobalt and nickel from lithium-ion batteries. The two-year award running from February 2022 to January 2024 aims to validate Nth Cycle's novel electro-extraction nanotechnology for battery recycling and cobalt mining. Specifically, the company will test a flow-through water electrolysis process using high local...

The National Science Foundation awarded a $275,000 Project Grant to Reqyrd Inc. under the NSF Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships program (CFDA 47.084) to develop separations of critical materials from lithium-ion battery black mass. The one-year project aims to establish domestic recyclability for energy materials like cobalt, lithium, manganese, carbon, and nickel that are currently reliant on imports. Through the exploitation of solubilities using sulfites, the grantee will determine...

This $250,000 Project Grant from the National Science Foundation's Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships program will support the development of next-generation, low-cost, and sustainable recycling of lithium-ion batteries at the University of California, San Diego from July 2022 through June 2024. The university will improve and scale up advanced direct recycling technologies to recapture valuable materials from spent lithium-ion batteries and mitigate environmental pollution. Current...

The National Science Foundation awarded a $250,000 Project Grant under the NSF Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (CFDA 47.084) program to The University of Akron to develop a device to safely recycle scrap cathode materials from lithium-ion battery manufacturing facilities. The project aims to overcome technical challenges in solvent formulation and machine design to enable direct recycling of cathode materials back into the supply chain. This innovation has potential to create new...

The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a $300,000 Early-Concept Grant for Exploratory Research (EAGER) under the Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) to Boston College to investigate a new biohydrometallurgic approach for recycling spent lithium-ion batteries. The project aims to utilize microorganisms, specifically Acidothiobacillus ferrooxidans bacteria, to recover key battery cathode minerals such as nickel, cobalt, and manganese in a green, self-sustaining manner. This 2-year project...

The Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E) awarded Arizona State University $385,000 under a Cooperative Agreement to support the project "Re-mining Red Mud Waste for CO2 Capture and Storage and Critical Element Recovery (RMCCS-CER)" from February 15, 2023 through February 14, 2025. The objective of the project is to use supercritical carbon dioxide to recover critical elements, especially rare earth elements, from aluminum production wastes known as...

This federal Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) provides $300,000 to the University of Virginia to support research and development focused on advancing a novel lithium extraction process for recycling lithium-ion batteries. The two-year project aims to develop a fundamental understanding of key components in this recycling approach, which leverages chemical oxidation and selective electrochemical recovery to selectively extract...

This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) provides $579,227 to The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York to develop an integrated biochemical and physicochemical process to recover critical metals from municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills. The project aims to: 1) characterize critical metal content in existing landfill leachates, 2) examine the use of in-situ biofilms for bioleaching, 3) elucidate the complex chemistry of...

This $206,500 Project Grant award from the Department of Energy's Office of Science under the Office of Science Financial Assistance Program (CFDA 81.049) was granted to Faraday Technology, Inc. to support the "Sustainable Recovery of Critical Materials from Fuel Cells/Electrolyzers". Through this award, Faraday Technology, a subsidiary of Physical Sciences Inc., will conduct research and development on innovative electrochemical processes for recovering and recycling critical...

The Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E) awarded Johns Hopkins University a $1.76 million cooperative agreement from January 2023 to January 2026. The award aims to develop carbon-negative mining of critical elements like manganese, cobalt, nickel and copper from low-grade gangue minerals through energy-efficient electrosynthesis of acid and base using renewable electricity. Johns Hopkins will produce hydrochloric acid via salt splitting to leach targeted...