A new kind of battery recycling technology has been developed by Toyota

It has been revealed that Toyota Chemical Engineering has been able to develop a new recycling technology, which is suitable to high-voltage batteries. It was stated by Toyota that the new process ‘allows CO2 emissions to be reduced in the recycling process and more raw materials to be reused.’

Recently Toyota has been focused on the process of gradually increasing recycling capacities, as well as building out locations across the globe. For example, in 2023, Toyota revealed a partnership with Cirba for battery recycling in the USA, this begun in 2022. Along with this, a series of collaborations was started with the Chinese battery giant CATL in 2019 and these collaborations included recycling activities.

In regard to its new development, Toyota has made it clear that in contrast to conventional recycling methods, the newly developed process is both safer and has higher yields. Previous processes usually involved used batteries being processes within an incineration plant and then the rare metals would be collected, before going on to be further processed. Studies have shown that this process was often prone to producing a higher loss of materials.

Toyota has developed a process which follows this structure, ‘the highly flammable electrolyte liquid in accumulators, which favours the movement of ions, is distilled and extracted. Afterwards, the battery cells are then crushed, sorted and fed back into the production process. The recovered parts are large pieces containing aluminium or iron or the so-called ‘black mass’ powder, which contains various rare metals.’

On top of this, Toyota has highlighted that from 2031 onwards, European battery manufacturers must process a fixed proportion of rare metals which have been recovered from used batteries.

The initiators made it clear that ‘the increasing spread of electrified vehicles means that more rare metals such as cobalt and lithium are required in manufacturing. As these materials are only available in limited quantities, the topic of recycling is becoming increasingly important – “also in order to establish a resource-conserving circular economy on the road to climate neutrality.”

Chief Sustainability Officer at Toyota, Yumi Otsuka, commented, “Of course, implementing such new processes also means high investment costs. But it is crucial to take a holistic view of the life cycle of a car. Take our KINTO mobility service, for example. Since we manage the vehicles ourselves, it is easier to ensure reuse and recycle the parts and materials.”