The batteries from old Formula E cars will be recycled to make new batteries by a Belgian recycling company as part of a new official partnership.
Umicore has been announced as the official battery recycling supplier to Formula E and is starting by recycling the lithium-ion cells used during the first two seasons of the electric street racing series held between 2014 and 2016.
The recycling process consists of sorting, dismantling and recovering the valuable metals using a smelting technology which is followed by hydrometallurgical treatment.
The metals inside the battery, which include vanadium, cobalt and nickel, do not lose any of their properties after recovery and will be reused in new rechargeable batteries or other products.
Umicore is one of a few companies worldwide to offer a complete recycling process.
Alejandro Agag, founder and CEO of Formula E, said, “This is an important moment for Formula E.
“To be able to recycle our battery cells with a closed-loop approach means we are doing our utmost to limit the impact we have on the environment.”
By partnering with Umicore, Formula E hopes to make electric motorsport even more environmentally friendly. The original 28kW batteries were provided by Williams Advanced Engineering (WAE) and were updated for season three and four in 2016-2017 and 2017-2018.
The batteries for the latest Formula E race series have been supplied by McLaren Applied Technologies.
According to this article on the Formula E website, the batteries from season 1 and 2 cannot be used again for racing and a project was run that considered their use as storage for domestically generated renewable energy.
