The rising attractivity of Electric Vehicles creates a growing necessity to re-think the end of life management of the batteries in the near future. GHOST results show that an effective end of life management of batteries begins with the product design. The Project offers an alternative approach to the design of battery systems from second life user and dismantler point of view to enable an expansion of the use phase. Results from the Project show that an improved design of the battery system for the 4R principle (Repair – Reman – Reuse – Recycle) makes space to potential economic gain. Indeed, the remaining 70%-80% of the battery capacity at the end of the first life in automobile application can be re-used in second life use in stationary applications. Such as in solar panels or solar/wind installations.
UMICORE presented these promising results at the virtual ERTRAC/EGVI workshop on Circular Economy held last June 2020. UMICORE is specialised in the recycling procedures and regaining valuable metals from end of life batteries, making them available again to the battery production process. In GHOST, UMICORE leads the dismantling and second life of batteries.
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