Battery Recycling Solutions

Gisele Azimi, a University of Toronto professor and Canada Research Chair for Urban Mining Innovations, is pursuing battery recycling solutions using captured carbon dioxide. The experimental technique that Azimi and her team have developed involves the heating and pressurizing of CO2 and "transforming it into a supercritical fluid" that can dissolve and extract critical metals from electronic waste like batteries.

According to the professors, such critical materials "are needed for transferring our society towards a carbon-free era" but recognizes that these resources are not readily available. The battery recycling solution and electronic waste processing provide "an efficient avenue" to gain these resources. Compared to conventionally mined ores with low concentrations of rare earth metals (typically 1 to 2%), electronic waste can contain these metals at rates ranging from 20 to 38%.

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