The University of Birmingham has purchased a laboratory-scale ‘Rare Earth Roll Separator’ for its School of Metallurgy and Minerals lithium-ion battery recycling research facility.

The high-intensity magnetic separator from Bunting — one of the world’s leading designers and manufacturers of magnetic separators for the recycling and waste industries — enables the separation of ‘very weakly magnetic particles’. The Bunting European manufacturing facilities are in Redditch and Berkhamsted.

The Faraday Institution is funding the ReLiB (Recycling and Reuse of Li-ion Batteries) project, researching the reclamation, re-use and recycling of batteries used in electric vehicles.

As a key part of the project, the School of Metallurgy and Minerals of the University of Birmingham has established a new research facility assessing the chemical and physical challenges of effectively managing the reuse and recycling of used car batteries. This includes a battery shredding facility and a range of physical separation equipment.

Throughout the project, the team from the University of Birmingham worked closely with Bunting applications engineers based at the Redditch manufacturing plant.

The university team regularly use the wide range of laboratory-scale separation equipment at Bunting’s Customer Experience Centre in Redditch, including a ‘state of the art’ electroStatic separator.

Previously, the university purchased a laboratory-scale metal separation module comprising of a high-strength rare-earth drum magnet and eddy current separator that focus on the recovery of non-ferrous metallics.

The new laboratory-scale rare Earth roll separator works in conjunction with other separation equipment, enabling the separation of various anode and cathode materials from the shredded battery components.