Available for Licensing: Dimethyl Ether-Driven Rejuvenation Technology for Lithium-Ion Battery Cell Reuse
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Solicitation details, issuing organization, response deadlines, documents, and interested companies for this government contract opportunity.
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A novel dimethyl ether (DME)-driven technology is available for licensing to rejuvenate end-of-life lithium-ion battery cells without dismantling them, offering a transformative alternative to conventional recycling methods that require shredding and chemical or thermal separation of components. Instead of recovering raw materials like lithium, cobalt, and nickel through energy-intensive processes, this approach restores the electrochemical performance of existing electrodes by treating the fully assembled cell, preserving the original electrode architecture and enabling direct reuse. Early testing supports its feasibility, and if scaled successfully, it promises significantly lower energy use, reagent consumption, and capital costs compared to current hydrometallurgical or pyrometallurgical recycling routes, while eliminating multiple processing steps. This method targets a critical gap in the battery circular economy by providing the first commercially viable pathway to directly reuse rather than recycle LIB components. The technology is positioned to integrate into existing recycling facilities as a front-end rejuvenation step, reducing the volume of cells sent to downstream processing and supporting domestic efforts to prioritize reuse over extraction. It is applicable to batteries from consumer electronics, electric vehicles, and stationary storage, with potential to extend the service life of secondary-use batteries through partial capacity restoration. Solicited by the Department of Energy through Battelle Energy Alliance, the opportunity is open for licensing under solicitation number BA-1617, with a response deadline of August 1, 2026. Interested parties should contact Javier Martinez at the Idaho Falls, Idaho facility for further details and to pursue licensing options.
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Idaho Falls, ID, 83401, USASet-Aside
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Full Description
Overview
This technology introduces a dimethyl ether (DME)-driven method for rejuvenating end-of-life lithium-ion battery (LIB) cells, with the goal of restoring electrochemical performance without dismantling the cell into constituent materials. Conventional LIB recycling requires mechanical disassembly, crushing, and downstream hydrometallurgical or pyrometallurgical separation of anode, cathode, and electrolyte fractions, followed by reconstruction of new components. The DME-driven approach is intended to recondition spent cells so that the existing electrode architecture remains intact and reusable. By acting directly on the assembled cell, the method is designed to recover electrochemical functionality through a substantially simplified process flow. Preliminary electrochemical data generated during development supports the technical feasibility of the approach. If validated at larger scale, the technology may offer a recycling pathway that materially reduces process complexity, capital intensity, and reagent consumption compared with established LIB recycling routes.
Industry Need
Current LIB recycling infrastructure relies on multi-step processes that consume significant energy and reagents. End-of-life cells are typically shredded, with recovered black mass treated through hydrometallurgical leaching, solvent extraction, or high-temperature pyrometallurgical processing to isolate metals such as lithium, cobalt, nickel, and manganese. These recovered materials must then be reprocessed into battery-grade precursors and reassembled into new cells. The associated unit operations introduce capital cost, operating cost, and environmental burden, and there is presently no commercialized method to recondition or rejuvenate LIB cells or their principal components for direct reuse. As domestic demand for LIB recycling capacity grows, the absence of a lower-intensity reuse pathway constrains the economic and environmental performance of the broader battery circularity sector.
Differentiation & Advantages
- Operates directly on assembled cells, eliminating the need for shredding, separation, and component reconstruction steps required by conventional recycling.
- Designed to restore electrochemical properties of the existing electrode set, enabling direct electrode reuse rather than raw material recovery.
- Intended to reduce reagent and energy inputs relative to hydrometallurgical and pyrometallurgical processing.
- May lower capital and operational requirements for recycling facilities by consolidating multiple unit operations into a single rejuvenation step.
- Addresses a recycling pathway for which no commercialized equivalent currently exists.
Potential Applications
- Direct rejuvenation of end-of-life LIB cells recovered from consumer electronics, stationary storage, or transportation applications.
- Integration into existing LIB recycling and reuse facilities as a front-end reconditioning step prior to, or in place of, material recovery.
- Supporting domestic battery circularity initiatives that prioritize reuse over raw material extraction.
- Secondary-use battery pathways where partial capacity restoration may extend service life.
- Reducing the volume of cells entering energy-intensive downstream recycling streams.