Abstract
Rechargeable lithium-ion batteries power many modern devices, such as smartphones, laptops, and electric vehicles. These batteries are considered the most effective option and rely on cobalt predominantly sourced in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. A majority of the country’s cobalt is manually sourced by artisanal small-scale miners who often suffer severe health and human rights violations due to corruption and lack of government oversight. This article will analyze the ethics of maintaining a supply chain alongside such operations and the engineers’ moral obligation to improve it.
Introduction
Humanity is enjoying the most technologically advanced era in history, yet its foundations remain rooted in harmful practices. Many widely used technologies – such as smartphones, laptops, and electric cars – run on rechargeable batteries that rely on cobalt. As the leading producer of cobalt mined for these devices, it is concerning that the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) fails to enforce ethical labor standards. Artisanal and small-scale mines (ASMs) account for a significant share of DRC cobalt, where thousands of workers, including children, perform manual labor in unsafe conditions for minuscule compensation. These mines exploit both the DRC’s lack of regulation and widespread poverty to the detriment of their workers and the surrounding communities. This exploitation raises questions regarding why such abuses remain prevalent and how engineers who develop the demand for such practices are obligated to help.
The Cobalt Supply Chain: From Mine to Market
Cobalt plays a crucial role in the established quality of life for first-world society. Cobalt is a metallic chemical element that can enhance battery energy density, stability, and longevity [1,2]. The use of cobalt enables rechargeable lithium-ion batteries to be lighter, smaller, and more efficient, making cobalt an integral component of smartphones, laptops, electric vehicles, and even renewable energy storage [2,3]. Smaller-scale batteries, such as those used in the average smartphone, rely on five to ten grams of cobalt [3]. Larger projects, such as electric vehicle batteries, require between ten and twenty pounds of cobalt [3]. With the scale of production of these products, the global cobalt demand reached 232 kilotons as of 2023 [4]. As electric vehicle production and renewable energy storage continue to expand, cobalt demand will likely double by 2030 [4].
The DRC is home to the Katanga Copperbelt, which contains more cobalt deposits than the rest of the world combined [5]. As of 2023, the DRC accounted for 76 percent of global cobalt demand, with no other country contributing more than 5 percent [4]. Within the DRC, ASMs are the source of an estimated ten to twenty percent of the world’s cobalt. Artisanal mining is the practice of extracting minerals by hand using rudimentary tools such as pickaxes and shovels [5].
The Congolese Mining Code states that artisanal miners must work within an authorized mining cooperative and must complete formal registration to obtain an artisanal mining permit [6]. By this code, ASM operations must only employ authorized miners and take place within dedicated sites called Zones d’Exploitation Artisanales (ZEA) [7]. However, a severe lack of government oversight combined with rampant corruption drastically limits the effectiveness of such policies [5]. At least 90 percent of artisanal miners work for informal operations throughout the DRC that lack the required certification [6, 7]. There are an estimated 50,000 to 200,000 unregulated workers [6,7].
Established pathways exist for these illegal operations to evade consequences. The cobalt is either smuggled into formal mining operations or sold to Chinese traders, who then have it locally smelted by a Chinese company, Congo Dongfang International Mining [7, 8]. The cobalt is then transported to China, which refines approximately 90 percent of cobalt sourced from the DRC, and 80 percent of cobalt globally [8]. Once refined into industrial-grade material, the cobalt has entered the official supply chain. It then becomes a core part of battery cells for its various consumer applications, predominantly in China, Japan, South Korea, and the U.S. [8].
Analyzing Artisanal Mining Through Utilitarian Ethics
The lack of effective regulation that allows informal cobalt extraction to penetrate the formal supply chain also enables those informal ASMs to sacrifice worker well-being for production efficiency [5]. Utilitarianism is one ethical framework that effectively analyzes the moral trade-off between the human suffering at the bottom of the supply chain and the benefits enjoyed by consumers.
Utilitarianism is a branch of Consequentialism, which is the idea that morality depends strictly on consequences [9]. Act Consequentialism narrows this theory, stating that a moral action maximizes the resulting net good in the world [9]. Classic Utilitarianism, as defined by John Stuart Mill, refines this theory further by grounding moral value in hedonism: the idea that good is pleasure or happiness, and bad is suffering [10]. Thus, John Stuart Mill’s definition of Utilitarianism judges morality as the act that maximizes the net happiness for all affected individuals [10].
The benefits to consumers of the cobalt supply chain are widespread and significant. For perspective, there are an estimated 4.8 billion smartphone users worldwide, and the laptop market volume was approximately 280 million units in 2023 [11]. Using these cobalt-dependent devices, Pew Research Center found that 9 in 10 adults have at least occasional internet access in more than half of the countries surveyed, with an upper bound of 99 percent online in South Korea and a lower bound of 56 percent in India [12]. The benefits are as far-reaching as the technology. Superficially, Internet access provides entertainment and promotes social connection [13]. More importantly, the depth of available information for both students and instructors offers significant improvements in education [13]. For example, the average 2015 NAEP reading scale score for 8th graders with home internet access was 268, compared to 247 for their peers without home internet access [14]. Beyond internet access, lithium-ion batteries are the primary energy source for medical devices such as pacemakers, cochlear implants, and implantable cardiac defibrillators, all of which can monitor and improve patients’ quality of life [15].
The severity of its fundamental abuses offsets these benefits of the cobalt supply chain. Even in regulated operations, mining is hazardous, accounting for 8 percent of work-related deaths while only employing 1 percent of the global workforce [16]. The average cobalt operation in the DRC is worse, where Congolese miners work in extremely cramped conditions with little to no protective gear, safety regulations, or resources for resolving injuries and damage, exacerbating these risks [5]. While the lack of oversight makes informal mining-related accidents underreported and difficult to quantify, available data provides a reasonable estimate [17]. A 12-month study of artisanal mining-related accidents in Katanga found a 72 percent injury rate, with less than 20 percent of those injuries receiving medical attention [18]. Furthermore, the International Labor Organization asserts that ASM fatality rates are up to 90 times higher than their industrial counterparts, with suffocation, landslides, and falls [17, 19].
As well as physical injury, cobalt, manganese, and uranium particles emitted during cobalt mining can be cancer-causing and damaging to the heart, lungs, blood, and thyroid [20, 21]. These effects are apparent in the inhabitants of Kolwezi, an essential mining city in the DRC [20]. The mining and transportation of minerals in and around the city resulted in a measured 70-fold and 13-fold increase in cobalt and uranium, respectively, in outdoor and indoor surface dust [20]. In these conditions, the children of Kolwezi showed urinary 8-OHdG levels 6.7 times higher than usual [20]. Elevated 8-OHdG levels are an indicator of oxidative DNA damage and are linked to an increased risk of cancer later in life [20, 22].
Utilitarianism determines the ethicality of ASM in the cobalt supply chain by weighing the happiness it produces against the suffering it causes. While joy and suffering are not precisely quantifiable, they generally can be compared relative to one another. For example, the magnitude of suffering endured by an artisanal miner being injured or killed is easily greater than the magnitude of happiness granted by a single smartphone. However, Utilitarianism requires a consideration of the number of people suffering or benefitting as well as the magnitude of their experience [10]. When considering the billions of people who benefit from the social, academic, and health benefits of cobalt-based technologies, the aggregate happiness becomes far from minuscule. Because of this, the total happiness produced by the billions of people moderately benefiting from cobalt-based technology is greater than the suffering caused by its production. Thus, it would be fair to conclude from a Utilitarian standpoint that if the cobalt supply chain results in net happiness, it is ethical.
A Rights-Based Approach
The conclusion above highlights weaknesses in the Utilitarian framework that fail to capture the whole picture of the cobalt supply chain. An analysis that focuses solely on net happiness fails to consider whether there is an amount of individual suffering that is unjustifiable. Is it ever ethical for even one person to experience utter agony, no matter the result?
Rights-Based Ethics is rooted in the idea that a human’s free will gives them inherent moral value [23]. Within this framework, every person has the right to their own dignity and autonomy, and the right to have others respect their moral rights [24]. The morality of an action depends on the extent to which it upholds the rights of individuals. An action is considered moral when it respects the rights of all individuals it affects and less moral as it increasingly violates those rights [23].
In the case of ASM in the DRC, the cobalt supply chain violates several widely accepted human rights, including the rights to work in just conditions and to be free from injury [23, 25]. The lack of regulation and the resulting abuses constitute a clear violation of this right. The consequences of such abuses, shown by the incredible rates of injury and death, violate the right to be free from injury. A violation occurs only when these rights are exercised against an individual’s will [26]. For example, if someone willingly participates in an activity they know to be dangerous and gets hurt, their right to be free from injury has not been violated. This distinction is essential because miners may knowingly work in poor conditions that pose a risk of severe injury. However, this possibility overlooks the fact that the DRC is one of the most impoverished countries in the world and ranks in the bottom 10% of the World Governance and Development Indicators [20]. As a result, the wage range of one to two dollars per day promised by hard labor in ASMs is the only option for many Congolese [5]. While technically consensual, the miners’ dire situation leaves them no choice but to accept abuses they cannot afford to refuse. This situation raises the question of whether ASMs can obtain workers’ consent and determine whether they are violating workers’ right to freedom.
Consent involves a person’s voluntary and informed agreement with another person’s wishes or proposal [27]. While informed miners may be aware of the abuses and risks associated with ASM, the pressure to feed their families can cause them to accept risks that they would never accept if they could meet their basic needs. If a person is choosing between inhumane conditions and survival, their work is not truly voluntary, and their consent is not genuine.
Even if one were to argue that such cases still constitute consent, in 2023, the United States Department of Labor estimated between 67,000 and 80,000 cobalt miners in the DRC work involuntarily in artisanal mines without consent [28]. Additionally, child labor plagues ASMs in the DRC, with approximately two-thirds of workers in informal mining operations reporting child labor at their work site [28]. When viewing the ethicality of the cobalt supply chain through the lens of human rights, it is clear that numerous human rights violations outweigh the Utilitarian potential for net happiness, making informal ASM operations unethical.
Do Engineers Have a Moral Obligation to Solve this Ethical Crisis?
A moral obligation is a duty to act a certain way based on one’s ethical principles. If ethical principles identify an action as both feasible and the right thing to do, that action is a moral obligation [29]. Peter Singer supplies a definition more specific to the case of stopping the abuses of ASMs in the DRC. Singer states that if it is in one’s power to prevent something bad from happening, without sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, one is morally obligated to do so [30]. Thus, if engineering ethics identifies the abuses of informal mining operations as unethical, and engineers can reduce such abuses without sacrificing the benefits cobalt provides, they are obligated to do so.
The American Institute of Chemical Engineers’ Code of Ethics states that engineers must “hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public” in their duties [31]. While the Utilitarian perspective identifies benefits to consumers that improve public welfare, ASMs’
health and safety violations overshadow these benefits. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) elaborates on the engineer’s ethical imperatives, stating an ethical engineer must “have zero tolerance for bribery, fraud, and corruption in all forms” [32]. This statement clearly condemns the subversion of labor laws and the smuggling of illegally sourced cobalt in the DRC. ASCE also highlights the ethical importance of considering the impacts of technologies that engineers develop [32]. Because of this, an ethical engineer must consider the consequences of developing cobalt-reliant technologies, which depend on fraud and corruption that jeopardize the health of Congolese miners, and identify such development as unethical.
For a moral obligation to fall upon engineers, they must also be able to mitigate the abuses of the supply chain without relinquishing its benefits. Engineering alternatives to cobalt-reliant batteries is one way to reduce such abuses. For example, sodium-ion batteries offer an energy-storage alternative that aims to rival lithium-ion technology without the ethical costs [33]. The sodium used in sodium-ion batteries is mainly obtained by electrolyzing molten sodium chloride, also known as halite [34]. Established frameworks exist to ensure the formality of halite mining operations. They exist due to halite’s global abundance, primarily in the U.S, China, Russia, Germany, and Canada, which do not suffer from the same lack of government oversight that allows the informal mining abuses in the DRC [34].
Unfortunately, the current state-of-the-art sodium-ion batteries have considerably lower energy density than lithium-ion batteries. This deficiency causes sodium-ion batteries to be larger and to charge more slowly than lithium-ion batteries storing the same amount of energy [35]. Despite this, the road to sodium-ion batteries as a viable alternative to lithium-ion batteries is promising. For example, in 2024, researchers at the University of Texas at Austin developed a sodium-ion battery anode with a higher energy density than previous sodium-ion anodes; this anode could charge as quickly as a similarly sized lithium-ion battery [36]. While the battery’s energy density remained lower than that of lithium-ion alternatives, it represents a significant step towards the viability of sodium-ion batteries [36].
With the University of Texas at Austin’s advances and others like them, the feasibility of engineering lithium-ion battery alternatives is clear. If sodium-ion batteries reach the same level of performance, they will provide an appealing alternative for companies looking to source their products ethically. This increased performance would allow the consumer-level benefits of lithium-ion batteries to persist without the physical abuse or human rights violations. Thus, the real possibility of engineering a benefit-preserving alternative to unethically sourced products imposes a moral responsibility on engineers to work towards an ethical battery supply chain.
Beyond cobalt-free energy sources, engineers can mitigate the harms of the cobalt supply chain by researching cobalt recycling technologies. Increasing the amount of recycled cobalt would reduce demand for unethically sourced cobalt while still enabling the production of the technologies it supports. Cobalt is endlessly recyclable [37]. While overall battery performance may degrade, the cobalt inside the battery does not [37]. However, recycled cobalt accounted for only 5.2 percent of global cobalt supply in 2023, as the vast majority of lithium-ion batteries in portable electronics are discarded at the end of their life cycle [4, 37]. The cobalt that is not recycled usually ends up in landfills, which is both wasteful and harmful to the surrounding environment [38].
The two main processes for extracting cobalt from spent lithium-ion batteries are pyrometallurgy and hydrometallurgy. Pyrometallurgy uses extremely high temperatures to smelt cobalt from a used battery, and hydrometallurgy uses an acidic solution to break down a battery into its metallic components [38]. Both these established processes require manual disassembly of the battery before extraction, which can cause the loss of some of the original cobalt. Thus, even after being recycled, cobalt must undergo additional manufacturing processes before being incorporated into a new battery [38].
These current limitations in cobalt recycling provide a promising area of research for engineers in the field. For example, the ReCell Center for Advanced Battery Recycling is researching a technique called direct recycling, which aims to preserve the cathode structure of a disposed lithium-ion battery, reducing the time and cost required to create a working battery from its recycled components [39]. In doing so, ReCell claims to have found a scalable process for separating a lithium-ion battery’s cathode while maintaining battery performance within a few percent of the original [39]. While ReCell’s progress is a small step towards the widespread recycling of lithium-ion batteries and the cobalt they rely on, it shows that this goal is reachable. By building on the progress demonstrated by ReCell, engineers can support technologies that depend on cobalt while minimizing demand for cobalt sourced unethically.
Conclusion
While the technologies produced by cobalt in ASMs promise global benefits, their ethical violations offset such benefits. Utilitarian ethics suggests that the widespread benefits of internet connectivity, health care technologies, and the number of people they affect may justify the exploitation at the bottom of the cobalt supply chain. However, given the human rights violations against workers in artisanal mines, it is clear that the practice is unethical and must be discontinued. With engineering ethics condemning the abuses at the bottom of the cobalt supply chain and the realistic opportunity for engineers to address them, engineers have a moral obligation to work towards a more sustainable future.
By Connor McGartland, Viterbi School of Engineering, University of Southern California
About the Author: At the time of writing this paper, Connor McGartland was a third-year student at the University of Southern California. He was pursuing a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science and planned to work as a software engineer after graduation.
References
[1] “Cobalt – element information, properties and uses,” Periodic Table, https://periodic-table.rsc.org/element/27/cobalt (accessed Mar. 26, 2025).
[2] G. Zubi et al., “The lithium-ion battery: State of the Art and Future Perspectives,” Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1364032118300728 (accessed Mar. 7, 2025).
[3] A. C. Frankel, “The Cobalt Pipeline: Tracing the path from deadly hand-dug mines in Congo to consumers’ phones and laptops,” Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/the-cobalt-pipeline-tracing-the-path-from-deadly-hand-dug-mines-in-congo-to-consumers-phones-and-laptops/ (accessed Mar. 7, 2025).
[4] “Cobalt market report 2023,” CobaltInstitute.org, https://www.cobaltinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Cobalt-Market-Report-2023_FINAL.pdf (accessed Mar. 26, 2025).
[5] S. Kara, Cobalt Red, First. Macmillan US, 2023. Available: https://archive.org/details/siddharth-kara-cobalt-red-how-the-blood-of-the-congo-powers-our-lives-st.-martin/page/n231/mode/2up
[6] O. Ojewale, “Rampant cobalt smuggling and corruption deny billions to DRC,” ISS Africa, https://issafrica.org/iss-today/rampant-cobalt-smuggling-and-corruption-deny-billions-to-drc#:~:text=Around%20150%20000%20to%20200,depend%20on%20these%20miners’%20incomes.&text=The%20Mining%20Code%20stipulates%20that,of%20an%20authorised%20mining%20cooperative. (accessed Apr. 8, 2025).
[7] T. De Putter, “cobalt means conflict” – Congolese cobalt, a critical element in lithium-ion batteries, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341266721_Cobalt_means_conflict_-_Congolese_cobalt_a_critical_element_in_lithium-ion_batteries (accessed Apr. 9, 2025).
[8] S. Gifford and M. Howard, “Building a responsible cobalt supply chain,” Building a Responsible Cobalt Supply Chain, https://www.faraday.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Faraday_Insights_7_Jan23_Final.pdf (accessed Apr. 9, 2025).
[9] W. Sinnott-Armstrong, “Consequentialism,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consequentialism/ (accessed Mar. 7, 2025).
[10] R. Crisp, Routledge philosophy guidebook to Mill on Utilitarianism, https://www.utilitarianism.com/guidebook.pdf (accessed Mar. 8, 2025).
[11] S. Gill, How Many People Own Smartphones in the World? (2024-2029), https://prioridata.com/data/smartphone-stats/ (accessed Apr. 8, 2025).
[12] J. Poushter, “8 charts on technology use around the world,” Pew Research Center, https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/02/05/8-charts-on-technology-use-around-the-world/ (accessed Apr. 8, 2025).
[13] N. Drogruer, “The use of the internet for educational purposes,” Science Direct, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042811025547 (accessed Apr. 8, 2025).
[14] “Student access to digital learning resources outside of the classroom,” National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Home Page, a part of the U.S. Department of Education, https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2017/2017098/ind_15.asp?(accessed Apr. 8, 2025).
[15] S. Yang et al., “Powering implantable and Ingestible Electronics,” Advanced Functional Materials, vol. 31, no. 44, Feb. 2021. doi:10.1002/adfm.202009289. Available: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8553224/
[16] G. Hilson, “Small‐scale mining and its socio‐economic impact in developing countries,” Natural Resources Forum, vol. 26, no. 1, pp. 3–13, Feb. 2002. doi:10.1111/1477-8947.00002. Available: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1477-8947.00002
[17] D. McFarlane and J. McQuilken, “How (un)safe is ASM? counting and contextualizing fatality…,” Delve, https://delvedatabase.org/resources/how-unsafe-is-asm-counting-and-contextualizing-fatality-frequency-rates (accessed Apr. 8, 2025).
[18] M. Elenge, A. Leveque, and C. Brouwer, “Occupational accidents in artisanal mining in Katanga, D.R.C.,” International Journal of Occupational Medicine and Environmental Health, vol. 26, no. 2, Jan. 2013. doi:10.2478/s13382-013-0096-0 (accessed Apr. 8, 2025)
[19] R. Boniface et al. Occupational injuries and fatalities in a tanzanite mine: Need to improve workers safety in Tanzania. Pan African Medical Journal. 2013. Available: https://panafrican-med-journal.com/content/article/16/120/full/ (accessed Apr. 8, 2025)
[20] C. Banza Lubaba Nkulu et al., “Sustainability of artisanal mining of cobalt in DR Congo,” Nature News, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-018-0139-4 (accessed Mar. 7, 2025). Available:https://dial.uclouvain.be/pr/boreal/object/boreal%3A213422/datastream/PDF_01/vie
[21] S. H. Farjana, N. Huda, and M. A. P. Mahmud, “Life cycle assessment of cobalt extraction process,” Journal of Sustainable Mining, vol. 18, no. 3, pp. 150–161, Aug. 2019. doi:10.1016/j.jsm.2019.03.002
[22] M. S. Cooke, M. D. Evans, M. Dizdaroglu, and J. Lunec, “Oxidative DNA damage: Mechanisms, mutation, and disease,” The FASEB Journal, vol. 17, no. 10, pp. 1195–1214, Jul. 2003. doi:10.1096/fj.02-0752rev
[23] M. Velasquez, M. J. Meyer, S.J., T. Shanks, and C. Andre, “Thinking ethically,” Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, https://www.scu.edu/ethics/ethics-resources/ethical-decision-making/thinking-ethically/ (accessed Apr. 8, 2025).
[24] M. Velasquez, M. J. Meyer, S.J., T. Shanks, and C. Andre, “A Framework For Thinking ethically,” Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, Umaine, https://honors.umaine.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/184/2020/10/A-Framework-for-Thinking-Ethically.pdf (accessed Apr. 9, 2025).
[25] “Human rights,” United Nations, https://www.un.org/en/global-issues/human-rights (accessed Apr. 8, 2025).
[26] J. Nickel and A. Etinson, “Human rights,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rights-human/#CiviPoliRigh (accessed Apr. 8, 2025).
[27] V. K. Bohns and R. Schlund, “Consent is an organizational behavior issue,” Research in Organizational Behavior, vol. 40, p. 100138, 2020. doi:10.1016/j.riob.2021.100138
[28] Forced Labor in Cobalt Mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ILAB/DRC-FL-Cobalt-Report-508.pdf (accessed Apr. 9, 2025).
[29] K. Baier, “Moral obligation,” Am. Philos. Q., vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 210–226, 1966. [Online]. Available: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20009206. Accessed: Mar. 8, 2025.
[30] P. SingerFamine, affluence, and morality, Oxford university press, https://global.oup.com/academic/product/famine-affluence-and-morality-9780190219208?cc=us&lang=en& (accessed Apr. 9, 2025).
[31] “Code of ethics,” AIChE’s, https://www.aiche.org/about/governance/policies/code-ethics (accessed Apr. 8, 2025).
[32] “Code of ethics,” ASCE American Society of Civil Engineers, https://www.asce.org/career-growth/ethics/code-of-ethics (accessed Apr. 8, 2025).
[33] Move over lithium: Sodium batteries could one day power a green economy, https://www.science.org/content/article/move-over-lithium-sodium-batteries-could-one-day-power-green-economy (accessed Mar. 8, 2025).
[34] “Sodium,” Minerals Education Coalition, https://mineralseducationcoalition.org/elements/sodium/#:~:text=Most%20sodium%20is%20obtained%20by,%2C%20Germany%2C%20Russia%20and%20Canada. (accessed Apr. 8, 2025).
[35] M. Schirber, “Sodium as a green substitute for lithium in batteries,” Physics, https://physics.aps.org/articles/v17/73 (accessed Apr. 8, 2025).
[36] M. Airhart, “Sodium-based material yields stable alternative to lithium-ion batteries,” UT Austin News – The University of Texas at Austin, https://news.utexas.edu/2021/12/06/sodium-based-material-yields-stable-alternative-to-lithium-ion-batteries/ (accessed Apr. 8, 2025).
[37] “Determining the global warming potential of cobalt,” Cobalt Institute, https://www.cobaltinstitute.org/sustainability/responsible-secondary-cobalt/#:~:text=Cobalt%20is%20in%20the%20batteries,recovered%20–%20enabling%20a%20circular%20economy. (accessed May 14, 2025).
[38] Z. J. Baum, R. E. Bird, X. Yu, and J. Ma, “Lithium-ion battery recycling─overview of techniques and trends,” ACS Energy Letters, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 712–719, Jan. 2022. doi:10.1021/acsenergylett.1c02602
[39] Mitigating the impact of thermal binder removal for direct Li-Ion Battery Recycling | ACS sustainable chemistry & engineering, https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acssuschemeng.0c03424 (accessed May 15, 2025).
Further Reading Links
https://greenly.earth/en-us/blog/industries/sodium-batteries-a-better-alternative-to-lithium
https://bhr.stern.nyu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Cobalt-Mining-2023_White-Paper.pdf
https://honors.umaine.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/184/2023/04/Horvat-2023-Rezendes-Ethics.pdf