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Disassembly of EV batteries using advanced robotics-AI

With an unwavering commitment to sustainability and driving the wheels of the circular economy, NSRC excels in the meticulous disassembly of Electric Vehicle Batteries, taking them apart from the pack level down to the cell level. This intricate process allows us to extract valuable materials with utmost efficiency. Our innovative approach ensures that every component is carefully handled, maximizing the potential for recycling and promoting a greener future.

  • A researcher uses a tablet to control and robotic arm

    Dr Rastegarpanah, a highly experienced professional with over five years of expertise in robotic disassembly of EV batteries, leads a team of skilled roboticists. Their primary research efforts revolve around the development of adaptive AI-based control strategies, digital twins, and task planners that enable multiple robots to collaboratively carry out the EV battery disassembly process. Furthermore, Dr Rastegarpanah has successfully developed a series of AI models capable of accurately estimating the state of health of EV batteries in less than 30 seconds. Another area of Dr Rastegarpanah's research involves the development of digital passports that allow for continuous monitoring of the condition of EV battery components throughout their lifespan.

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RELIB: Reuse and Recycling of Lithium-ion Batteries

Dr Rastegarpanah talks about their newly built national test bed for robotic disassembly at Birmingham Energy Innovation Centre at Tyseley Energy Park.

RELIB: Reuse and Recycling of Lithium-ion Batteries

Transcript

RELIB: Reuse and Recycling of Lithium-ion Batteries

Title: RELIB: Reuse and Recycling of Lithium-ion Batteries

Duration: 2.45 mins

Begins

[Faraday Institution Logo]

[RELIB: Reuse and Recycling of Lithium-ion Batteries]

[Dr Simon Lambert, Senior Lecturer, Newcastle University] The RELIB project stands for recycling of Lithium-ion batteries. It's a government funded project through the Faraday institution led by the University of Birmingham and the other partners are Edinburgh University, Newcastle University, Leicester and University College London.

So Lithium-ion batteries are all around us in everyday life, there's already an awful lot of people driving electric vehicles so the battery in their car depending on whether it's a hybrid it might be the size of a small suitcase or if it's a fully electric SUV the battery could weigh the same as a small car so they do range in scale. That's really where a lot of the challenges are in what we're doing in the recycling work.

Larger batteries may contain thousands of cells so you're also getting a scale clearly in volume and mass but in voltage so the challenges are really diverse and they're really multi-disciplinary

[Dr Ben de Laune, Research Project Manager, Faraday Institution] I think one of the real beauties of the project is actually doing a lot more of the upfront work. So rather than just taking a battery pack and sticking it through a shredder and mincing it all up, it's actually doing all this disassembly and deconstructing the battery pack into smaller smaller units that can be more easily recycled.

[Dr Alireza Rastegarpanah, Research Scientist in Robotics and AI, University of Birmingham] AI is quite an important element during the process of disassembly because we have diversity in design of batteries. So at the moment there is no standard and AI helps us to generalize the process. We are creating digital passports and making data sets to understand the details of design for various batteries.

[Dr Simon Lambert] The project is five years old and at the beginning it's a collaboration of academic partners now moving through that there have been several inventions and discoveries which have gained a lot of traction and interest with industrial partners.

What we need to do is remember why we're making batteries in the first place, why are we going towards electrification of everything and ultimately it's because of our environment. You need something that's going to unify and galvanize so many different areas such as research, industry, government, policy, you know these things don't come together on their own.

This is why the RELIB project is so brilliant, I think because it touches on all of these areas and this is where I think the FI have a really key role in doing this, trying to help support and pull these things together so that the brilliant academic research is translated into industry and government policy. But you only get that opportunity really to do this at the start of something new and we're at the start of something new right now, and which is one of the beauties of the project.

[Faraday Institution RELIB logo, UKRI logo, UCL logo, Newcastle University Logo, University of Birmingham logo]

[Learn more at www.faraday.ac.uk]