“The discovery uses tiny micro batteries to break down the lithium, nickel, cobalt and manganese from a battery, before using an amino acid to extract the metals.
“The use of glycine as the amino acid avoids using harsh chemicals for the recycling process, [and avoids] the creation of toxic byproducts.
“The newly developed system is able to recover 99.99 per cent of the lithium, 96.8 per cent of the nickel, 92.35 per cent of the cobalt and 90.59 per cent of the manganese from old batteries in just 15 minutes.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/battery-recycle-lithium-ion-environment-b2713723.html
The Independent · Battery breakthrough as 99.99% of lithium extracted from old cells
