The Faraday Battery Challenge Round 5 Innovation: CR&D award activity will take place at our EV Battery Recycling Technology Centre in Devon, UK and will focus on the on processing of lithium ferro-phosphate (LFP) batteries.

Imperial will produce lithium-ion coin cells and pouch cell batteries to validate the electrochemical performance of recycled technology metals from a mixed stream of waste, including LFP and verify they perform the same as batteries from virgin raw material. Altilium Metals is working with Professor Magda Titirici, Chair in Sustainable Materials and her team.

In EVs, the dominant cathode chemistries are lithium nickel manganese cobalt (NMC) and lithium iron phosphate (LFP). In the future it is expected LFP cells would gain share at the expense of NMS cells. It is predicted the market share of LFP cells could be as high as 47% by 2026 in EVs.

The work performed under the Faraday Battery Challenge is directly connected to our planned UK plant recycling battery waste from 150,000 EVs to Cathode Active Material (CAM) and will enable a circular economy for the battery value chain. The plant designed by Hatch is basis a hybrid feed including 8% LFP battery waste and this work is important to characterise a mixed feed of battery waste.

The volume of lithium being supplied to the market from recycling battery waste is currently small, but between 9-11% of lithium demand 2035 could be met from recycled material. This will complement the mining of virgin raw materials and help conserve valuable resources.

Consistently rated amongst the world’s best universities, Imperial College London is a science-based institution with a reputation for excellence in teaching and research.

The Faraday Battery Challenge represents a UK Government investment of £330 million between 2017 and 2022. The challenge aims to support a world-class scientific, technology development and manufacturing scale-up capability for batteries in the UK.