Latest Battery Workforce Challenge partner introduces recyclability into competition

American Battery Technology Company (ABTC), an integrated critical battery materials company that is commercializing its technologies for both primary battery minerals manufacturing and secondary minerals lithium-ion battery recycling, announced its entrance into the U.S. Department of Energy’s Battery Workforce Challenge, and the launch of an ABTC-developed new “Design for Recyclability” category for this three-year collegiate and vocational engineering competition.

This competition supports 12 North American teams of universities and their regional vocational partners that are each designing, building, testing, and integrating a next-generation advanced lithium-ion battery pack and electric powertrain into a Stellantis-donated 2024 Ram ProMaster EV. ABTC’s entrance into this competition brings an additional dimension of performance in the evaluation of these designs, as students are now challenged to design battery packs with a design for recyclability (DFR) mindset that allows for these complex batteries to be strategically disassembled and recycled at the end of their lives. These high-value constituent components within the batteries are then able to be recovered and resold into the domestic North American supply chain to create a closed-loop circular infrastructure, increasing the residual value of the battery pack and lowering overall lifecycle costs of EVs.

“We work directly with many of the premier automotive OEMs and receive large amounts of current and next generation prototype battery packs, and these pack designs are becoming increasingly complex with the proliferation of cell-to-pack, advanced passive propagation resistance, and hybrid cell chemistry designs,” states American Battery Technology Company CEO Ryan Melsert. “When we speak with leadership at these automotive OEMs they often detail the engineering methods to increase gravimetric and volumetric energy density to increase performance and lower overall cost. However, one of the most impactful tools for decreasing cost is to increase the residual value of the battery at its end of life, and embedding from the early design stages a strategic plan for how to demanufacture a battery can significantly lower recycling costs and increase recovery rates within a recycling process.

This new “Design for Recyclability” methodology embeds within the next generation of electric vehicle and battery engineers the importance of designing battery systems that can be strategically demanufactured and recycled at their end of lives, and of using materials and designs to facilitate this closed-loop circular mindset to return end-of-life materials to the battery manufacturing supply chain. Training and guidance from ABTC will help steer new and innovative battery pack designs toward more environmentally and economically sustainable materials and practices.  

The Battery Workforce Challenge is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and Stellantis and managed by Argonne National Laboratory. It provides future engineers and technicians real-life experiences to shape new energy-efficient mobility solutions. The “Design for Recyclability” category focuses on areas such as 3D modeling, dynamic simulations, and lifecycle modeling and economic impact, and it introduces students to Argonne National Laboratory ReCell’s BatPaC, GREET, and EverBatt Models for calculating lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions, economic impacts, and ensuring that end-of-life materials are re-introduced into the domestic supply chain.  

ABTC will also support other initiatives within the Battery Workforce Challenge Program, including efforts to establish regional workforce training hubs nationwide that will step into critical skill gaps and identify areas to reskill and upskill vocational and transitional workers for in-demand EV and battery manufacturing and recycling jobs.