Although rechargeable batteries in smartphones, cars and tablets can be charged again and again, they don”t last forever. Old batteries often wind up in landfills or incinerators, potentially harming the environment. And valuable materials remain locked inside. Now, a team of researchers is turning to naturally occurring fungi to drive an environmentally friendly recycling process to extract cobalt and lithium from tons of waste batteries.
The researchers will present their work today at the 252nd National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS). ACS, the world”s largest scientific society, is holding the meeting here through Thursday. It features more than 9,000 presentations on a wide range of science topics.”The idea first came from a student who had experience extracting some metals from waste slag left over from smelting operations,” says Jeffrey A. Cunningham, Ph.D., the project”s team leader.