An increasing number of electric cars – the recycling of batteries as a solution?

In March 2023, the countries of the European Union (EU) made a momentous decision: To only newly register zero-emission passenger cars and vans starting in 2035 [1]. Since making that decision, it has been clear that the future of the automotive industry is in e-mobility. Forecasts for the industry reveal this as well. There were approximately 27.7 million electric vehicles worldwide in 2022, the International Energy Agency (IEA) anticipates this number to exceed 226 million by 2030 [2]. In Germany, almost a quarter of all cars will be electric cars [3] – currently they account for just two percent[4].
There are two problems with electric vehicles. With increased consumer demand, the mountain of used batteries grows. This is because they currently only have an average service life of about ten years. At the same time, raw materials for their production are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. One solution for both is recycling, which is where the KUKA industrial robot – or, more specifically, the KR QUANTEC industrial robot – comes into play.
With the robot’s help, the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology and Automation IPA in Stuttgart, Germany demonstrated how recycling can work efficiently through the “DeMoBat" an abbreviation that loosely translates to "Industrial Disassembly of Batteries and Electric Motors." The research partners investigated how to recondition batteries from electric cars in both sustainable and economically viable ways. In this project, a total of eight robotic applications were set up as demonstration and testing tools that could be used for continuous industrial operation.