Study level

  • PhD
  • Master of Philosophy
  • Honours
  • Vacation research experience scheme

Faculty/School

Faculty of Science

School of Chemistry and Physics

Topic status

We're looking for students to study this topic.

Research centre

Supervisors

Professor Deepak Dubal
Position
Professor
Division / Faculty
Faculty of Science
Dr David Pham
Position
Division / Faculty

Overview

With the ever-increasing demand for batteries, the accelerated production will soon translate into massive amounts of waste. Establishing effective LIB recycling strategies will balance the impact of end-of-life LIB waste and the demands on raw materials in the battery supply chain. Due to high prices of raw materials, the global LIB recycling market was valued at about $1.78 billion in 2017 and is expected to reach $23.72 billion by 2030, suggesting a significant opportunity for the recovery of valuable metals from spent LIBs

Common approaches to extract the metal contained in the active lithium metal oxides such as hydrometallurgy usually involves caustic reagents such as hydrochloric, nitric, and sulfuric acids and a long processing period. This project aims to synthesise novel solvents as well as processes for the metal recovery from used batteries and mines. These green solvent provide a cheap alternative to conventional methods of LIB recycling and reclaiming strategically important metals.

Research activities

This project provides a green and cheap alternative for extracting valuable metals from batteries, thereby addresses a major issue of battery recycling.

Research activities can include:

  • synthesis of green solvents
  • metal leaching and recovery
  • elemental studies using Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-OES Analysis)
  • characterizations of recovered materials.

The supervisory team has a strong track record and a wide range of expertise in chemistry, materials science, energy storage technologies such as batteries and supercapacitors.This is symbiotic opportunity to work with a well-established, highly collaborative research group environment using cutting-edge instruments at the Central Analytical Research Facility (CARF). This will provide you with an effective and rich learning experience.

Outcomes

The project will provide an advanced understanding of novel solvents for the efficient metal leaching and recovery from the used batteries as well as mines with a potential breakthrough in battery recycling.

The technological applications of this research will bring opportunities to work with local and international industries. The best results of this research are expected to be published in high impact journals and/or presented in the national/international conferences.

Skills and experience

The candidate is expected to have a strong background in chemistry, material science, physics and engineering. Research experience in energy-oriented fields will be positively considered. The research group is well-equipped and have all the required facilities.

Scholarships

You may be eligible to apply for a research scholarship.

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Keywords

Contact

Contact the supervisor for more information.