Scientific American reporter Prachi Patel writes that a new study by Prof. Elsa Olivetti found that demand for cobalt, which is critical to electric vehicle batteries, could soon outstrip supply. “The best lithium battery cathodes [negative electrodes] all contain cobalt, and its production is limited,” Olivetti explains.
The PBS NewsHour highlights how one organization used tracking technology developed by Prof. Carlo Ratti to learn what happens to recycled electronic waste. “Tracking is really the first step in order to design a better system,” Ratti said. “One of the surprising things we discovered is how far waste travels.”
MIT scientists have shown recycled lead can be used in solar cells, reports Popular Science’s Emily Gertz. “The group's work demonstrates that the perovskite created from the lead in just one old car battery could provide materials for 30 households-worth of solar energy cells,” writes Gertz.
Martin LaMonica writes for IEEE Spectrum about how MIT researchers have developed a system that uses car batteries to produce solar cells. “The beauty is that this new process is pretty interchangeable with the current production method,” says Prof. Angela Belcher.
Washington Post reporter Rachel Feltman writes that MIT engineers have developed a system that recycles batteries into solar cells. “We think it could be a competitor that’s easy to process, has rapidly increasing efficiency, and can be made in an environmentally friendly way,” says Prof. Angela Belcher.