Cornell develops DEER to restore lithium ion batteries to 95%
Cornell scientists have come up with a novel new way to bring dead lithium-ion batteries back to life, restoring them to 95% of their original capacity.
Their technique, called DEER (Direct Electrode-to-Electrode Regeneration), skips the usual shredding and instead uses an electrochemical bath to fix the part of the battery that causes most performance issues.
DEER reduces recycling costs over 50%
DEER works by soaking intact electrodes, removing the layer that slows batteries down but keeping a helpful lithium fluoride coating.
This makes old batteries ready for reuse and cuts recycling costs by more than half.
Even after a second regeneration cycle, these revived batteries still hold about 90% of their original capacity, a big step forward for making battery technology greener and cheaper.