XCharge North America, a provider of dc fast-charging and battery-integrated electric vehicle (EV) solutions, has partnered with Grensol Group.
The collaboration focuses on addressing the growing issue of end-of-life waste in Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE), with a particular emphasis on EV charging cables and modules, as part of efforts to promote more sustainable electrified travel.
Effective immediately, XCharge NA will provide broken or worn-down EVSE materials to Grensol and its research partner Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) to develop an industrial recycling solution for such equipment.
Grensol will then use its advanced metals recovery and photolysis technologies, among other technologies also being studied, to process the waste and produce valuable raw materials for a circular economy, including critical metals for new EVSEs.
The research at WPI is being led by Prof. Brajendra Mishra and Dr. Akanksha Gupta . It is being performed under a collaborative agreement between WPI and the DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory.
“EVSEs have a particularly short useful life due to constant wear and tear, so the need for a recyclable material solution is the driving force behind this partnership,” said Rajiv Singhal of Grensol. “Partnering with XCharge NA will provide us and WPI with more materials and information for our development of breakthrough low-cost circular materials solutions for the future that keep resources onshore and materials in use for longer while avoiding carbon emissions.”
XCharge NA and Grensol discovered their shared interest in promoting sustainable solutions in the automotive industry while both being part of the Harvard Innovation Labs.
Looking into the future, this partnership aims to build on existing techniques, such as wire cutting, alkaline leaching, and steam cracking by integrating full unit recycling, a system for waste-reduction management of EV chargers. For now, the first components including charging cables and modules have been shipped from XCharge NA to Grensol and WPI for processing.
Filed Under: Technology News