Group Examines Electric Vehicle Battery Recycling and Reuse Opportunities in Michigan

An electric vehicle plugged in to charge

A collaborative effort in Michigan is considering recycling and repurposing capacity and opportunities in the state of Michigan, as reported by Chioma Lewis for Great Lakes Echo:

A new project by recycling company Battery Solutions and sustainability-focused group NextEnergy aims to make electric vehicle recycling opportunity recommendations to the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy by February 2022.

The project is funded by a $50,000 grant from the state Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy as part of their NextCycle Michigan initiative.

A major part of the project is to build capacity in the state for repurposing and recycling electric vehicle batteries, said Jim Saber, the president and CEO of NextEnergy.

The six-stage project will involve cataloging, evaluating and analyzing Michigan’s electric vehicle battery supply chain and infrastructure.

The project will also analyze gaps in electric vehicle battery secondary use and recycling opportunities.

Electric vehicle battery components could be reclaimed for use in the creation of new batteries or other products, while intact batteries might be repurposed for renewable power or other energy storage applications.

Read the full story in Great Lakes Echo.

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Innovative Insole Uses Sweat Evaporation to Generate Power

As reported on Phys.org, researchers from the National University of Singapore have created a 3D printed prototype of a shoe insole that evaporates sweat faster than normal and uses the harvested moisture to generate energy:

“In our new invention, we created a novel film that is extremely effective in evaporating sweat from our skin and then absorbing the moisture from sweat. We also take this one step further—by converting the moisture from sweat into energy that could be used to power small wearable devices,” explained research team leader Assistant Professor Tan Swee Ching, who is from the NUS Department of Material Science and Engineering.

The main components of the novel thin film are two hygroscopic chemicals—cobalt chloride and ethanolamine. Besides being extremely moisture-absorbent, this film can rapidly release water when exposed to sunlight, and it can be ‘regenerated’ and reused for more than 100 times.

To make full use of the absorbed sweat, the NUS team has also designed a wearable energy harvesting device comprising eight electrochemical cells (ECs), using the novel film as the electrolyte. Each EC can generate about 0.57 volts of electricity upon absorbing moisture. The overall energy harvested by the device is sufficient to power a light-emitting diode. This proof-of-concept demonstration illustrates the potential of battery-less wearables powered using human sweat.”

This prototype is certainly interesting and has obvious potential for improving human comfort, confidence, and possibly health. It remains to be seen whether commercialization of the technology will be feasible and whether researchers develop effective ways to recycle the product at the end of its useful life. Conventional electronics are already a waste generation challenge, and wearable technology is notoriously difficult to recycle and a potential contaminant in recycling streams. Further, the incorporation of cobalt chloride in this product could prove problematic and detrimental to sustainable design, as continues to be the case for most electronics. Cobalt mining operations have been supported by child labor, so truly sustainable designs will strive to use reclaimed cobalt from the recycling of existing products for the preparation of cobalt compounds for the manufacture of new devices. It could be the case that innovations such as this one might reduce reliance on batteries, and thus reduce overall demand for cobalt, but any cobalt in a product supply chain must be scrutinized. We can only hope that the same innovativeness that leads to prototypes such as this insole can inspire researchers to continuously improve the overall sustainability of product design and end-of-life management.

Learn more:

Xueping Zhang et al, Super-hygroscopic film for wearables with dual functions of expediting sweat evaporation and energy harvesting, Nano Energy (2020). DOI: 10.1016/j.nanoen.2020.104873

Apple and Google named in US lawsuit over Congolese child cobalt mining deaths

Cavusoglu, AH., Chen, X., Gentine, P. et al. Potential for natural evaporation as a reliable renewable energy resource. Nat Commun 8, 617 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-00581-w

 

Families of Child Miners Sue Tech Companies Over Human Rights Abuses

In the January 9, 2020 edition of Triple Pundit, Roya Sabri reported on a lawsuit filed by International Rights Advocates (IRA) on behalf of child miners and their families, against several major tech companies, including Apple, Alphabet (parent company of Google), Microsoft, Dell and Tesla. The lawsuit argues that tech companies, profiting from the cobalt supplies which are often supported by child miners’ efforts, should be responsible for the wellbeing of those subsistence cobalt miners.

From Sabri’s article:

The DRC supplies the world with more than 60 percent of its cobalt. A good portion is mined by subsistence miners — independent contractors who take it upon themselves to find and unearth the metal. The miners climb down shafts just wide enough for their bodies with no more than a flimsy headlamp, a hammer and a sack. If a worker gets hurt or dies, buyers take no responsibility and do not offer assistance or support. Reports by Amnesty International and The Washington Post in 2016 revealed these inhumane conditions, but little has changed for the better since then.

Young children are entering this work, often to help their families pay for the essentials needed to survive. The lawsuit’s plaintiff, labeled Jane Doe 1, reports that her nephew began working in mines to pay his $6 a month school fee. Last year, the tunnel where he was digging collapsed. The family never found his body.

The narratives documented by the lawsuit show that this boy’s story is not an isolated incident.

Read the full story at Triple Pundit: https://www.triplepundit.com/story/2020/silicon-valley-giants-sued-over-human-rights-abuses-cobalt-supply-chain/86141.

For the IRA press release related to this lawsuit, see http://www.iradvocates.org/press-release/iradvocates-files-forced-child-labor-case-against-tech-giants-apple-alphabet-dell.

For previous SEI posts related to cobalt in the electronics supply chain, see https://sustainable-electronics.istc.illinois.edu/?s=cobalt.

RSN Recommends Regulatory Enforcement, Investor Engagement to Urge Corporate Due Diligence on Conflict Minerals

The Responsible Sourcing Network (RSN), is a project of the nonprofit organization As You Sow, dedicated to ending human rights abuses and forced labor associated with the raw materials found in consumer products. On October 18, 2018, RSN released its Mining the Disclosures 2018: An Investor Guide to Conflict Minerals Reporting in Year Five report, which “analyzes 206 companies’ supply chain due diligence efforts regarding conflict minerals, including tin, tantalum, tungsten, and gold, or 3TG. In the fifth consecutive year of analyzing companies’ conflict minerals compliance and reporting, the report shows that a large number of the companies’ scores stayed flat or decreased.”

Read the full press release at https://www.sourcingnetwork.org/press-release-mtd-2018. You can download this year’s report, those from previous years, and watch a webinar about the 2018 report at https://www.sourcingnetwork.org/mining-the-disclosures.

Cover of the Mining the Disclosures report

According to RSN, “The technology sector outperformed all others, while laggard industries included integrated oil & gas, steel, business services, and building materials. Innovative companies showed constant improvements, including increased participation in on-the-ground initiatives, proactive risk assessments, and comprehensive risk mitigation measures. However, compared to 2017, a majority of companies’ scores that reflect alignment with the OECD’S Conflict Minerals Guidance declined. The results show a global lack of desire to improve due diligence practices over the last few years.

“Conflict minerals” include tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold (aka 3TG). They are so called because these minerals are often sourced from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which is one of the most mineral-rich countries in the world, and in recent years, unfortunately also one of the most war-torn. Militant groups controlling mines have used violence, including murder, torture, rape and other sexual violence, forced labor and use of child soldiers, in their control of the populace to further their profit from sale of these minerals and their war efforts. Conflict minerals are used in a wide variety of electronic devices, and are also found in a variety of other products, including jewelry, dental products, tools, biocides, ammunition, medical devices, and others. For more information, see https://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/conflict-minerals/ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_resource#Conflict_minerals.

Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Action, passed in 2010 and implemented starting in 2012 by the Securities and Exchange Commission, requires that all companies publicly traded in the the US with products containing any of the four conflict minerals report on the source of the minerals in their supply chain. This required transparency has not eliminated human rights issues associated with conflict mineral sourcing, but it has demonstrably improved conditions for Congolese miners. Before passage of the law, the UN reported that nearly every mine in Congo was controlled by armed groups. As of 2016, the independent research institute, International Peace Information Service (IPIS) found that 79% of “3T” miners surveyed in eastern Congo were working in mines where no armed group involvement had been reported. (See https://enoughproject.org/special-topics/progress-and-challenges-conflict-minerals-facts-dodd-frank-1502).

RSN cites the Trump administration’s “contempt for regulations” and threats made last year to “suspend Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Act” as part of the reason for the decline in corporate due diligence related to conflict minerals sourcing. “The disregard of corporate responsibility for conflict minerals during the Trump administration is concerning,” said Raphaël Deberdt, author of the Mining the Disclosures 2018 report. “The increasing neglect of the conflict minerals legislation from some companies over the past few years has been a source of human rights abuses in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. And these abuses extend beyond the 3TG sphere.

According the RSN press release: ‘Companies involved in mineral supply chains — from mines to retailers — now face additional challenges that must be integrated into corporate risk mitigation frameworks. The increasing importance of cobalt, lithium, and nickel in the automotive and technology sectors should trigger red flags in compliance departments in a broader risk context, including environmental degradation, organizational health and safety, human rights, and community impacts. Similarly, the upcoming EU regulation will necessitate increased due diligence from importers of 3TG, not only from the Congo region, but from all conflict-affected and high-risks areas. “The results of this year’s report demonstrate the need for an increase in regulatory enforcement and investor engagement that urge companies to undertake proactive due diligence efforts,” said Patricia Jurewicz, vice president of Responsible Sourcing Network. “These programs must continuously improve to address and mitigate the evolving material risks associated with conflict mineral supply chains.”

RSN further asserted that “leading companies” such as Intel, Microsoft, Apple, Qualcomm, Ford, Royal Philips, and HP “prove that taking a due diligence approach to reduce harmful impacts on the communities producing the raw materials in our electronics is an achievable and beneficial business model.

The Mining the Disclosures report was sponsored by As You Sow and the Responsible Minerals Initiative (RMI), which is holding its annual conference on October 31-November 2, 2018 in Santa Clara, CA.

 

Amnesty International Reports on Child Labor in Cobalt Battery Supply Chain

On November 15, 2017, Sustainable Brands reported that Amnesty International had released a new report revealing that tech industry giants such as Microsoft, Lenovo, Renault and Vodafone aren’t doing enough to keep child labor out of cobalt battery supply chains in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and China. “The findings come almost two years after Amnesty exposed a link between batteries used in their products and child labor. Time to Recharge ranks industry leaders, including Apple, Samsung SDI, Dell, Microsoft, BMW, Renault, Vodafone and Tesla according to improvements to their cobalt-sourcing practices since January 2016. The 108-page report revealed that only a handful of companies made progress, with many failing to take even basic steps, such as investigating supply links in the DRC. The report’s publication is timely, arriving just months after the UK government announced plans to ban new petrol and diesel cars and vans from 2040, which would ultimately lead to higher demand for cobalt batteries. This last point is particularly problematic as recent reports have revealed that cobalt resources are on the decline, despite demand growth predicted at 500 percent.”

See http://www.sustainablebrands.com/news_and_views/walking_talk/sustainable_brands/amnesty_international_reveals_tech_industry_giants_fa for the complete article on the Sustainable Brands web site.

To download the report itself, Democratic Republic of the Congo: Time to recharge: Corporate action and inaction to tackle abuses in the cobalt supply chain (15 November 2017, Index number: AFR 62/7395/2017), see https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/afr62/7395/2017/en/.

Amnesty International logo, with the wordmark on a yellow background beside a stylized image of a lit candle entwined with barbed wire

2017 iNEMI Roadmap Rollout Webinars

The International Electronics Manufacturing Initiative (iNEMI) regularly produces industry roadmaps. According to the iNEMI web site, “Each edition is a global collaborative effort that involves many individuals who are leading experts in their respective fields and represent many perspectives on the electronics manufacturing supply chain.  Our roadmap has become recognized as an important tool for defining the “state of the art” in the electronics industry as well as identifying emerging and disruptive technologies. It also includes keys to developing future iNEMI projects and setting industry R&D priorities over the next 10 years.”

The latest edition of the iNEMI roadmap will go on sale this month. In preparation, iNEMI is previewing highlights from select chapters in the following two webinars:

  • Asia (April 6): Internet of Things (IoT) and Packaging & Components Substrates chapters
  • North America/Europe (April 7): IoT and Sustainable Electronics chapters

For details including session overviews, times, and online registration, see the iNEMI web page for these rollout webinars.

The purpose of these webinars is to introduce the 2017 iNEMI Roadmap and identify key issues and needs, collect feedback during the Q & A session for ongoing gap analysis purposes, recruit participation in in the development of the iNEMI Technical Plan, and recruit participation in the next roadmap development cycle. (See http://community.inemi.org/content.asp?contentid=56 for information on the 2015 Technical Plan.)

iNEMI logo

Joint ECOLOGO/EPEAT Certification for Mobile Phones Announced

I’ve written a fair amount on this blog about the EPEAT product registry, and its usefulness for consumers and procurement officers interested in identifying more sustainably-produced electronics devices. Previously the registry was only available for the PCs and displays (including tablets), imaging equipment (which includes printers, copiers, scanners and multifunction devices) and televisions. There has been talk for many years about the development of criteria to register mobile phones, but the multi-stakeholder process of criteria development is a long and rigorous process which takes time.

Those of us who have been waiting for those mobile phone criteria were delighted to hear the recent news that the Green Electronics Council, the organization that administers the EPEAT product registry and UL Environment, a business division of Underwriters Laboratories, a leading name in product safety, had announced a joint-certification to enable mobile phones that are certified to the ANSI/UL 110 sustainability standard to also be featured on the EPEAT Registry. This joint ECOLOGO/EPEAT certification is now available for mobile phone brands that want to certify their products to the latest UL 110 standard and also make them eligible for procurements and tenders that require EPEAT-registered products.

According to the UL Environment web site, “Products with this mark have achieved certification to lifecycle-based standards specifically tailored for mobile phones and are subject to ongoing verification through the EPEAT system. This unprecedented combination of pre- and post-market auditing ensures the credibility of manufacturers’ sustainability claims. It also allows the thousands of governments, institutions and businesses worldwide with an EPEAT purchasing policy to quantify how mobile phones contribute to their sustainable-procurement goals.”

While you cannot yet search the EPEAT registry for phones, according to the Green Electronics Council, “Several of the world’s most popular mobile-phone brands have already begun the pre-assessment process for UL ECOLOGO/EPEAT Joint Certification, while wireless carriers worldwide have expressed interest in working with vendors to require phones that carry the UL ECOLOGO/EPEAT joint certification mark.” I for one look forward to the day in the near future when we can search the EPEAT registry when making decisions about new phone purchases!

For more information see the Green Electronics Council press release, and the UL Environment page on the joint ECOLOGO/EPEAT certification.

ecologo/EPEAT mark

Still Time to Apply for EPEAT Purchaser Awards

The February 15 deadline for applying for an EPEAT purchaser award is fast approaching. The EPEAT product registry is a useful tool to identify more sustainable electronic product options in the categories of PCs and Displays (including tablets), Imaging Equipment (which includes printers, copiers, scanners and multifunction devices) and Televisions.

Originally funded by the US EPA, EPEAT is a searchable database of electronics products in certain categories, which is administered currently by the Green Electronics Council. EPEAT criteria are developed collaboratively by a range of stakeholders, including manufacturers, environmental groups, academia, trade associations, government agencies, and recycling entities. The EPEAT product criteria cover much more than just energy efficiency–they include issues of material selection and product design, end-of-life management considerations, and corporate performance, among others. To learn more, read my previous post “How to Use the EPEAT Registry to Purchase Greener Electronics–Archived Webinar.” You may also wish to register for the February 9 webinar, “Using the EPEAT Registry to Purchase Environmentally Preferable Electronics.

All organizations that use EPEAT in their purchasing selections are eligible for the EPEAT purchaser awards. See the award web page for full requirements and submission details. Winners will be announced at a March 13th ceremony, sponsored by ITI, in Arlington, VA.  EPEAT Purchaser Award winners will receive:

  • Public recognition for their dedication to environmentally preferable purchasing and greener electronics
  • A calculation of environmental benefits
  • Case study participation opportunities

Questions about the awards program can be addressed to Andrea Desimone of the Green Electronics Council.

EPEAT logo

 

NASA Invests in Innovative Concepts, Including Electronic-recycling Microbes

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) recently announced that 13 proposals had been selected for funding as part of the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program, which “invests in transformative architectures through the development of pioneering technologies.” According to the press release, “NIAC Phase I awards are valued at approximately $100,000 for nine months, to support initial definition and analysis of their concepts. If these basic feasibility studies are successful, awardees can apply for Phase II awards, valued up to $500,000 for two additional years of concept development.” Read the full press release on the NASA web site.

Among the funded proposals is a concept entitled Urban bio-mining meets printable electronics: end-to-end at destination biological recycling and reprinting,” submitted by Lynn Rothschild, NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. The project description states:

“Space missions rely utterly on metallic components, from the spacecraft to electronics. Yet, metals add mass, and electronics have the additional problem of a limited lifespan. Thus, current mission architectures must compensate for replacement. In space, spent electronics are discarded; on earth, there is some recycling but current processes are toxic and environmentally hazardous. Imagine instead an end-to-end recycling of spent electronics at low mass, low cost, room temperature, and in a non-toxic manner. Here, we propose a solution that will not only enhance mission success by decreasing upmass and providing a fresh supply of electronics, but in addition has immediate applications to a serious environmental issue on the Earth. Spent electronics will be used as feedstock to make fresh electronic components, a process we will accomplish with so-called ‘urban biomining’ using synthetically enhanced microbes to bind metals with elemental specificity. To create new electronics, the microbes will be used as ‘bioink’ to print a new IC chip, using plasma jet electronics printing. The plasma jet electronics printing technology will have the potential to use martian atmospheric gas to print and to tailor the electronic and chemical properties of the materials. Our preliminary results have suggested that this process also serves as a purification step to enhance the proportion of metals in the ‘bioink’. The presence of electric field and plasma can ensure printing in microgravity environment while also providing material morphology and electronic structure tunabiity and thus optimization. Here we propose to increase the TRL level of the concept by engineering microbes to dissolve the siliceous matrix in the IC, extract copper from a mixture of metals, and use the microbes as feedstock to print interconnects using mars gas simulant. To assess the ability of this concept to influence mission architecture, we will do an analysis of the infrastructure required to execute this concept on Mars, and additional opportunities it could offer mission design from the biological and printing technologies. In addition, we will do an analysis of the impact of this technology for terrestrial applications addressing in particular environmental concerns and availability of metals.”

Note that “TRL” refers to “Technology Readiness Level,” a measure of the technological maturity of a concept, indicative of the degree to which it has developed beyond the initial faults and unforeseen problems that inevitably arise when something theoretical is brought into practice. NASA TRL definitions help characterize whether a concept is ready for use in space flight during missions or has been “flight proven” as part of successful missions.

Printable Electronics
Graphic depiction of printable electronics, from concept description on NASA web site.

Though the idea is geared toward making missions to Mars more practical in terms of the weight of materials needed to pack for missions and dealing with the lack of a local repair shop in the event of a device breakdown, the concept–if successful–could have obvious positive impacts on sustainable electronic product design and responsible management of the ever-growing stream of discarded electronics here on Earth. This could end up becoming one more example of how technology developed to enable space exploration could have benefits to humans in their everyday terrestrial lives. NASA has published an annual accounting of such technologies called “Spinoff” since 1976.

For more information on the NIAC program, visit https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/index.html. For more information on technological “spinoffs”  from space exploration which improve life on Earth, see the press release for the 2016 edition of Spinoff, and the official NASA Spinoff web site.

Deadline Extended: Apply for the 2016 EPEAT Purchaser Awards by April 27th

EPEAT_logoThe deadline has been extended until April 27th to submit applications for the EPEAT Purchaser Awards. The awards recognize excellence in green procurement of electronics. EPEAT Purchasers will earn a star for each product category for which they have a written policy in place that requires the purchase of EPEAT registered electronics.

The EPEAT Purchaser Awards are open to all organizations that purchase EPEAT-registered products and meet the following requirements:

  1. Agree to have your organization as an EPEAT Purchaser. EPEAT Purchasers agree to share their specific EPEAT vendor contract language and to be listed on the EPEAT website. By submitting the EPEAT Purchaser Award Application, you agree to have your organization listed as an EPEAT Purchaser.
  2. Must have an organizational purchasing policy in place for environmentally preferable procurement of electronics (see model policy language)
  3. Must set specifications in contracts with vendors requiring that all electronic products in a specific category (PC/Displays, Imaging Equipment, and Televisions) achieve Bronze registration or higher in the EPEAT system in the country/countries of purchase (see model contract language)
  4. Must report annual purchase volume  of EPEAT registered products

Winners will be honored on Monday, May 23, during a ceremony in Washington DC. The Awards ceremony will be co-located with the Sustainable Purchasing Leadership Council (SPLC) Summit at the Kellogg Conference Center and will take place immediately following the SPLC Pre-Summit Courses. All EPEAT Purchaser Award winners are invited to attend a brief reception before the ceremony, and then to participate in the ceremony itself.

For more information, and to apply, visit the EPEAT web site.