With the rapid rise and deployment of lithium ion batteries for portable and long-duration energy storage, concern has emerged regarding the resiliency of the materials supply chain. A lack of access to reliable recycling has emerged as the bottleneck toward a sustainable supply chain. In fact, the Department of Energy estimates that only 5% of discarded lithium-ion batteries get recycled. Due to this growing need, there has been a rise in the research and development conducted in industry, academia, and national labs related to recycling lithium ion batteries.

Thus, the primary scope of this symposium aims to develop a transdisciplinary research program focused on various materials related aspects of lithium ion battery recycling. The broad scope will cover research focused on unearthing critical information needed for recycling. This may range from microscopy and diagnostics of failed batteries, to the efficiency of current and emerging recycling processes, to life cycle assessments of recycling processes. The specific topic areas are listed on the next few pages.

We aim to invite a broad range of researchers from academia, industry, and government. We also intend to make this a global symposium, with researchers invited from around the world. The convergence of researchers on this topic has never taken place at this conference, and thus we aim to draw new attention towards it. We believe this is a rapidly growing area, and with the strong historical focus on materials for batteries, we believe that this new direction will be widely of interest to attendees.