Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have found a way to recycle cobalt and nickel from old batteries using tartaric acid, a by-product of wine-making.
The method separates these valuable metals to over 99% purity while avoiding the harsh chemicals used in conventional recycling.
Yayuan Liu, a chemical and biomolecular engineer at Johns Hopkins, led the team that developed the new process. The research was published in Science Advances and demonstrates how a common food acid can solve a difficult recycling problem.
Cobalt and nickel are critical materials in lithium-ion battery cathodes, but they are nearly impossible to separate using standard methods. They sit next to each other on the periodic table and share similar chemical properties, so they dissolve and precipitate at the same voltage. Conventional recycling uses toxic solvents in multiple steps, creating hazardous waste and driving up costs.
The new approach uses electrowinning, a technique that pulls metal ions from solution and deposits them onto an electrode using electricity. By adding tartaric acid to battery leachate, the researchers changed how cobalt and nickel behave under voltage. The acid binds to the metals and separates them at different electrical potentials.
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When the team applied specific voltages to the solution, cobalt came out first at over 99% purity. By adjusting the voltage in sequence, they recovered nickel at 96.5% purity and manganese at nearly 100% purity, with recovery rates above 95% for all three metals. The process works with real battery waste, not just lab-made solutions.
The method costs an order of magnitude less than solvent extraction, according to the team’s economic analysis. Tartaric acid is cheap, biodegradable, and available in large quantities from the wine industry. Unlike chloride salts, which require large amounts of reagent, this approach uses only small quantities of a mild organic acid.
The current process works at a laboratory scale and needs further development for industrial use. Researchers must verify that it performs consistently across different battery chemistries and larger volumes of waste.
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This matters because battery recycling will become essential as electric vehicle adoption grows. Cobalt and nickel are expensive, and mining them carries environmental and ethical concerns. A simple, low-cost method to recover these metals from dead batteries could reduce the need for new mining and make the EV supply chain more sustainable.
