The collaborative RECYBAT project aims to establish an expertise platform dedicated to battery reuse and second-life applications.

Objectives:

• Contribute to advancing the state of the art in battery second-life applications
• Develop inspection, analysis, testing and validation protocols
• Develop methods for assessing battery State of Health (SOH)
• Investigate battery ageing mechanisms and their impact on safety
• Validate battery compliance for new applications

Project Partners:

The RECYBAT project brings together three partners:

CREPIM: A European laboratory specialising in the development, testing and certification of fire-resistant materials, particularly for battery applications. CREPIM has specific expertise in analysing battery fire behaviour and conducting safety tests in accordance with international standards.

CRITT M2A: An expertise, R&D and testing centre specialising in electric mobility, with particular expertise in battery performance and durability testing. CRITT M2A is also involved in battery regulatory approval and R&D projects focusing on battery modelling and lifetime assessment.

UMET: A research laboratory affiliated with the University of Lille and CNRS, specialising in materials science and recycling processes. UMET has expertise in the recycling of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), including batteries, and has contributed to several research projects focusing on WEEE recycling.

Challenges of Battery Second-Life Applications

The current state of the art highlights several challenges associated with giving batteries a second life, including:

Remaining lifetime prediction: The complexity of battery ageing mechanisms makes it difficult to accurately predict their remaining useful life, which is essential when assessing their suitability for second-life applications.

Cost: The cost of battery reconditioning and reuse needs to remain competitive compared with the continually decreasing cost of new batteries.

Regulations: The lack of clear and harmonised regulations for second-life batteries has been a significant barrier. The introduction of new regulations is helping to address this issue.

Safety and regulatory approval: Ensuring the safety and reliability of second-life batteries is essential and requires appropriate sorting, testing and approval protocols.

Diversity: The wide range of battery chemistries, formats and previous use cases makes the reuse process more complex.

The RECYBAT project aims to address these challenges by developing an expertise platform for testing, characterising and validating end-of-first-life batteries for second-life applications.

This project is supported by the European Union and the Hauts-de-France Region through the Just Transition Fund.