Blockchain battery recycling app to be prototyped

UK blockchain technology startup Everledger is leading a project to incentivise the recycling of lithium-ion batteries. The project consortium named Team Portables has been awarded phase II funding of $357,000 from the US Department of Energy to develop a prototype app that can support its portable electronic lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery recycling drive. The app named 'Reward to recycle', which is being developed by Everledger, uses the blockchain to establish a digital identity or 'battery passport' to track portable Li-ion batteries and support their final recycling. The battery passport can be accessed by IOT identifiers as part of the labelling for each battery. Using their smartphone, users will be able to find out more about recycling and earn and record their rewards for doing so. "Many products containing lithium-ion batteries are not marked, so unknowing consumers throw them in the trash when no longer useful. There also is no incentive for consumers to recycle and it requires effort," says Lauren Roman, Everledger's business development director for metals & minerals ecosystems. "This new platform can provide consumers with complete information on where to recycle these products and get rewarded for doing so." The DOE is targeting 90% capture of discarded and spent Li-ion batteries in the US for recovery of key materials that can be reintroduced into the supply chain. Other partners in the project consortium include HP, the Netherlands headquartered ethical smartphone supplier Fairphone and Atlanta based consumer battery recyclers Call2Recycle. The programme will test new and proven incentive models to attract consumer participation and corporate social responsibility initiatives from the industry in order to motivate them to get their batteries to a qualified collection centre. Consumers can also interact with the app in other ways to learn more about sustainability, find their closest recycling centres and track their batteries from collection to recycling. Fairphone is piloting batteries with a QR code smart label in this project. The project follows the earlier award of phase I funding from the DOE to Everledger in January 2020 for the Li-ion battery recycling initiative. A second pilot, which also received phase I funding, was with Ford with a focus on the lifecycle tracing from manufacture to recycling of Li-ion batteries for electric vehicles on the blockchain. Similarly the aim is to bring sustainability to the battery chain. This story was originally published on Smart Energy International.