Licentiate Seminar
- ekuzmina9
- Sep 17
- 2 min read
On 11 September 2025, Andrea Locati from Chalmers University of Technology presented his licentiate research to the Industrial Materials Recycling group, focusing on the recycling of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) with particular emphasis on the recovery of two critical metals: manganese (Mn) and cobalt (Co). His work is part of the Industrial Material Recycling group at Chalmers University of Technology and contributes to advancing sustainable strategies for handling the growing number of end-of-life LIBs.
As society moves toward electrification of transport, the number of electric vehicles – and with them lithium-ion batteries – is rapidly increasing. Since batteries typically last 10–15 years, a large wave of end-of-life batteries will soon become available. Recycling them is crucial not only because of their hazardous waste profile but also because they contain valuable metals such as lithium, cobalt, manganese, and nickel, which are essential for future battery production.
His research focuses on hydrometallurgical recycling, a method that uses chemical solutions to extract metals from battery waste. In particular, Andrea explored solvent extraction, a technique that separates and purifies metals with high efficiency and quality.
In the first part of his work, Andrea studied the recovery of manganese from industrially processed NMC111 battery material. Using solvent extraction, he achieved a recovery rate of 98%, producing manganese sulfate monohydrate (MnSO₄·H₂O) with a very high purity of 99.6%. This compound can be directly reused in new battery production.
The second part of his research focused on cobalt recovery, which presented more challenges due to the need for precise pH control in the extraction process. To overcome this, Andrea investigated the use of saponified Cyanex 272, a modified solvent that simplifies extraction. He optimised the saponification conditions and demonstrated that 99.8% cobalt recovery could be achieved from NMC9.5.5 material using a two-stage extraction process.
His findings not only show promising routes for efficient metal recovery from spent LIBs but also provide new insights into how solvent saponification can be better understood and applied in multi-stage extraction systems.
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