Feeding off spent battery waste, a novel bacterium indicators a brand new technique for self-sufficient battery recycling

Chestnut Hill, Mass (10/22/2025) – A singular bacterium that thrives in extremely acidic environments feeds on spent battery “waste”, making it a promising new technique for self-sufficient battery recycling, in line with new analysis from Boston College chemists.

The bacterium, Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans (Atf), has a pure metabolic cycle that produces protons able to leaching electrode supplies from spent batteries, Professor of Chemistry Dunwei Wang, Associate Professor of Biology Babak Momeni, and colleagues reported just lately within the journal ACS Sustainable Resource Management.

“This is a critical step forward by examining the possibility of growing the bacteria using materials already present in spent batteries as a food source,” stated Wang. “More specifically, we used iron which is commonly employed as a casing material in batteries. Our results showed that the bacteria can indeed thrive with this new food source, and the resulting solution is highly active for recycling spent batteries.”

In an more and more electrified society, the widespread use of batteries to energy instruments, toys and devices factors to a two-fold disaster: the ever-expanding want to provide extra batteries and the fast accumulation of spent batteries.

Efforts to unravel these two issues have encountered excessive power use or require the transport and use of poisonous chemical substances.

Wang, working in collaboration with Momeni, determined to discover whether or not Atf might use the iron content material in spent batteries as a meals supply. In addition, might Atf-inspired options efficiently leach cathode supplies from spent batteries?

Momeni, whose analysis pursuits embody microbial ecology and mathematical modeling of organic methods, undertook the cultivation of the micro organism. Wang, a bodily chemist whose work focuses on clear power, used the tradition for battery cathode leaching. Additional co-authors had been analysis affiliate Wei Li, graduate scholar Brooke Elander, and undergraduates Mengyun Jiang and Mikayla Fahrenbruch.

Building on different analysis, the group wished to particularly see if they might change sulfate, which is one other important element within the meals supply.

“Our results suggest that the activity of the bacteria does not depend on the presence of sulfate,” stated Wang. “This is an important finding because it indicates that for future implementations, one could do away with the need for the transportation of large quantities of one toxic material.”

In addition, Wang stated the group examined the potential for utilizing chrome steel as a meals supply, which is way extra widespread in actual world batteries. Their experiments confirmed it labored even higher than pure iron.

“The finding that stainless steel worked better than pure iron was indeed a surprise,” stated Wang. “This is because stainless steel is a complex mixture. We didn’t expect it to work so well. But this is a notable unexpected development as stainless steel is more commonly encountered in real batteries.”

The group is now engaged on evolving the micro organism to enhance the recycling efficiencies. They are additionally engaged on constructing prototype batteries with the recycled supplies to show that they provide the identical efficiency benefits as conventional batteries constructed from new supplies.

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