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Battery Recycling and Automating Circular Economies (BRACE) Lab

blue robot arm unscrews bolts in an electric vehicle battery
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Battery Recycling and Automating Circular Economies Lab (BRACE)

The BRACE Lab addresses challenges of recycling and reusing automotive lithium-ion batteries, electric grid power electronics, hard drives, and other consumer electronics. This research incorporates automation, advanced diagnostics, and hardware-software integration to extend the useful life of electronics or reuse valuable constituents while reducing the environmental impact of these advanced technologies.

Limited economical and environmentally-friendly recycling opportunities exist for complex systems such as lithium-ion batteries and used electronics. These items are intrinsically valuable, but there is a need to develop technology that can safely and efficiently disassemble and extract the valuable components and critical materials such as rare earth minerals. The automation equipment in this lab enables the development of processes focused on safe and efficient methods for disassembly, reuse, and remanufacturing.  

EV batteries on a remote-controlled portable platform plugged into electrical equipment in a lab

Uniqueness and capabilities:

  • Developing novel disassembly tools and processes to maximize value recovery from end-of-life products containing valuable components and materials.
  • Integrating machine vision systems and industrial automation tools to autonomously defeat joining mechanisms such as screws, welds, adhesives, etc.
  • Advancing battery diagnostics by developing new characterization tools and techniques in addition to sensors on the battery pack, module, and cell level.
  • Developing secondary use energy storage systems from extracted modules and cells for grid and residential energy storage.
  • Evolving automated disassembly methods and processes for power and consumer electronics to extract and separate components for reuse.
Blue robot arm, taller than a man, with screwdriver attachment, in a multi-story lab

Technology resources:

  • Automated disassembly research platform including:
    • Autonomous guided vehicle for dynamic transportation of parts.
    • 165kg payload, 6-axis industrial robot arm.
    • Custom disassembly tooling and machine vision.
    • 20kg payload, 7-axis industrial robot arm.
  • Precision metrology station including coordinate-measuring machine and vision systems.
  • Material characterization station to rapidly identify extracted materials.
  • Electronics machining station testbed for evaluating screw extraction.
  • Benchtop waterjet and laser cutting machine for rapid prototyping of parts.
  • 32 cubic foot environmental chamber for cycling lithium-ion modules and cells.