Siamak Farhad

Cathode manufacturing scrap generated before cell assembly is a high-value direct-recycling feedstock because the cathode active material remains fresh, uncycled, and compositionally known. However, reuse requires selective delamination of the cathode coating from aluminum current collectors while preserving active-material quality. This study developed a human-in-the-loop physics-guided and AI-assisted (PGAA) solvent-discovery and scale-up framework for low-temperature, closed-loop recovery of LFP cathode manufacturing scrap. PGAA analysis showed that Hansen solubility distance alone cannot predict electrode-level delamination; performance also depends on solvent penetration, viscosity, wetting, polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) swelling/softening, coating cohesion, and coating–aluminum adhesion. The framework produced an interpretable kinetic correlation linking solvent descriptors, temperature, and time to delamination efficiency and enabling process-window analysis. Among the tested solvents and mixtures, the optimized dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO)/dihydrolevoglucosenone (Cyrene) mixture, 95:5 v/v, achieved nearly complete LFP coating removal at 90°C after 2 h using a 15 mL/g solvent-to-electrode ratio and 600 rpm agitation. The recovered LFP-rich material retained olivine crystallinity, particle morphology, elemental distribution, and carbon-containing surface features with low residual PVDF. Solvent and PVDF-rich fraction recovery were demonstrated, supporting a multi-output closed-loop recovery concept. Scratch testing was validated as a rapid, low-material, and automatable screening proxy, increasing throughput by more than 100 times when specimens were prepared in parallel. Finally, a first-generation laboratory-scale pilot processed 100 g of LFP cathode scrap and achieved 87% recovered LFP yield, demonstrating approximately 100-fold scale-up.

Since the first successful on-orbit repair mission in 1984 to the Solar Maximum Mission (SMM) satellite, considerable progress has been made in the field of On-orbit Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing (OSAM) of spacecraft using either human-guided or autonomous robots. This article aims to provide a review of state-of-the-art efforts in this field and the necessary technologies to achieve the ultimate objective of autonomous spacecraft repairs while in orbit. The article covers the literature relevant to OSAM, including a brief overview of OSAM, inspection technologies, manufacturing and repair technologies, state-of-the-art robotic technologies capable of performing the required tasks, and intelligent path planning of robots. The article also highlights the research’s location, timeframe, and public versus private sector efforts, and outlines future directions in this field. This article aims to foster a community of researchers and public-private partnerships working towards the common objective of autonomous robotic inspection and repair of on-orbit spacecraft.

In this study, we investigate the environmental stability of the sulfide-based argyrodite solid electrolyte Li₆PS₅Cl₀.₅Br₀.₅, a promising candidate for all-solid-state lithium batteries due to its high ionic conductivity and favorable mechanical properties. Despite its potential, the material’s sensitivity to ambient air humidity presents challenges for large-scale battery manufacturing. Moisture exposure leads to performance degradation and the release of toxic hydrogen sulfide (H₂S) gas, raising concerns for workplace safety. The objectives of this study are to validate the electrolyte synthesis process, evaluate the effects of air humidity exposure on its reactivity and ionic conductivity, and establish a standardized protocol for assessing environmental stability. We report a synthesis method based on ball milling and heat treatment that achieves an ionic conductivity of 2.11 mS/cm, along with a fundamental study incorporating modeling and formulation approaches to evaluate the electrolyte’s environmental stability. Furthermore, we introduce a simplified testing method for assessing environmental stability, which may serve as a benchmark protocol for the broader class of argyrodite solid electrolytes.

All-solid-state lithium batteries (ASSLBs) using argyrodite electrolyte materials have shown promise for applications in electric vehicles (EVs). However, understanding the effects of processing parameters on the ionic conductivity of these electrolytes is crucial for optimizing battery performance and manufacturing methods. This study investigates the influence of electrolyte operating temperature, electrolyte operating pressure, electrolyte pelletization pressure, and electrolyte pelletizing temperature on the ionic conductivity of the Li₆PS₅Cl_0.5Br_0.5 argyrodite electrolyte (AmpceraTM, D₅₀ = 10 µm). A specially designed test cell is employed for the experimental measurements, allowing for controlled pelletization and testing within the same tooling. The results demonstrate the significant impact of the four parameters on the ionic conductivity of the argyrodite electrolyte. The electrolyte operating temperature has a more pronounced effect than operating pressure, and pelletizing temperature exerts a greater influence than pelletizing pressure. This study provides graphs that aid in understanding the interplay between these parameters and achieving desired conductivity values. It also establishes a baseline for the maximum pelletizing temperature before undesirable degradation of the electrolyte occurs. By manipulating the pelletizing pressure, operating pressure, and pelletizing temperature, battery engineers can achieve the desired conductivity for specific applications. The findings emphasize the need to consider operating conditions to ensure satisfactory low-temperature performance, particularly for EVs. Overall, this study provides valuable insights into processing and operating conditions for ASSLBs utilizing the Li₆PS₅Cl_0.5Br_0.5 argyrodite electrolyte.

All-solid-state lithium batteries (ASSLBs) using argyrodite electrolyte materials have shown promise for applications in electric vehicles (EVs). However, understanding the effects of pro-cessing parameters on the ionic conductivity of these electrolytes is crucial for optimizing battery performance and manufacturing methods. This study investigates the influence of electrolyte op-erating temperature, electrolyte operating pressure, electrolyte pelletization pressure, and electro-lyte pelletizing temperature on the ionic conductivity of Li6PS5Cl0.5Br0.5 argyrodite electrolyte (AmpceraTM, D50=10 µm). A specially designed test cell is employed for the experimental meas-urements, allowing for controlled pelletization and testing within the same tooling. The results demonstrate the significant impact of the four parameters on the ionic conductivity of the argy-rodite electrolyte. The electrolyte operating temperature has a more pronounced effect than oper-ating pressure, and pelletizing temperature exerts a greater influence than pelletizing pressure. This study provides graphs that aid in understanding the interplay between these parameters and achieving desired conductivity values. It also establishes a baseline for the maximum pelletizing temperature before undesirable degradation of electrolyte occurs. By manipulating the pelletizing pressure, operating pressure, and pelletizing temperature, battery engineers can achieve the desired conductivity for specific applications. The findings emphasize the need to consider operating conditions to ensure satisfactory low-temperature performance, particularly for EVs. Overall, this study provides valuable insights into processing and operating conditions for ASSLBs utilizing Li6PS5Cl0.5Br0.5 argyrodite electrolyte.

The global transition to electric vehicles and renewable energy systems continues to gain support from governments and investors. As a result, the demand for electric energy storage systems such as lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) has substantially increased. This is a significant motivator for reassessing end-of-life strategies for these batteries. Most importantly, a strong focus on transitioning from landfilling to an efficient recycling system is necessary to ensure the reduction of total global emissions, especially those from LIBs. Furthermore, LIBs contain many resources which can be reused after recycling; however, the compositional and component complexity of LIBs poses many challenges. This study focuses on the recycling and reusing of copper (Cu) and aluminum (Al) foils, which are the anode and cathode current-collectors (CCs) of LIBs. For this purpose, methods for the purification of recycled Cu and Al CCs for reusing in LIBs are explored in this paper. To show the effectiveness of the purification, the recycled CCs are used to make new LIBs, followed by an investigation of the performance of the made LIBs. Overall, it seems that the LIBs’ CCs can be reused to make new LIBs. However, an improvement in the purification method is still recommended for future work to increase the new LIB cycling.

The properties of rubber have allowed it to be utilized across many different industries. One of the industries that use rubber is the tire industry. The rubber used in tires affects the performance of the vehicle such as its fuel consumption and safety. Hence, study on tire performance becomes important from different aspects. This study will look at the calculation of the friction coefficient of tire rubbers, which affects vehicle safety, based on studies conducted by different research groups. By combining different models, we suggest a new simple model to predict the friction coefficient. Several discussions in the article will be for validation of the model and its range of applications. We then implement a parametric analysis to determine which factors critically affect the friction coefficient. By finding the sensitivity of the inputs of the model/code, the critical factors can be identified and focused on. The parameters that are studied are the storage modulus, loss modulus, surface asperities heights, the surface asperities wavelength, and the adhesive contribution to friction. The adhesion and hysteresis contributions to the friction coefficient are also discussed in this article. It is shown that the adhesive contribution plays a large role in determining the friction coefficient.

Solid-state argyrodite electrolytes are promising candidate materials to produce safe all-solid-state lithium batteries (ASSLBs) due to their high ionic conductivity. These batteries can be used to power electric vehicles and portable consumer electronics which need high power density. Atomic-scale modeling with ab initio calculations became an invaluable tool to better understand the intrinsic properties and stability of these materials. It is also used to create new structures to tailor their properties. This review article presents some of the recent theoretical investigations based on atomic-scale modeling to study argyrodite electrolytes for ASSLBs. A comparison of the effectiveness of argyrodite materials used for ASSLBs and the underlying advantages and disadvantages of the argyrodite materials are also presented in this article.

Due to their safety and high power density, one of the most promising types of all-solid-state lithium batteries is the one made with the argyrodite solid electrolyte (ASE). Although substantial efforts have been made toward the commercialization of this battery, it is still challenged by some technical issues. One of these issues is to prevent the side reactions at the interface of the ASE and the cathode active material (CAM). A solution to address this issue is to coat the CAM particles with a material that is compatible with both ASE and CAM. Prior studies show that the lithium niobate, LiNbO₃, (LNO) is a promising material for coating CAM particles to reduce the interfacial side reactions. However, no systematic study is available in the literature to show the effect of coating LNO on CAM performance. This paper aims to quantify the effect of LNO coating on the electrochemical performance of a nickel-rich CAM. The electrochemical performance parameters that are studied are the capacity, cycling performance, and rate performance of the coated-CAM; and the effectiveness of the coating to prevent the side reactions at the ASE and CAM interface is out of the scope of this study. To eliminate the effect of side reactions at the ASE and CAM interface, we conduct all tests in the organic liquid electrolyte (OLE) cells to solely present the effect of coating on the CAM performance. For this purpose, 0.5 wt.% and 1 wt.% LNO are used to coat the LiNi_0.6Mn_0.2Co_0.2O₂ (NMC-60) CAM through two synthesizing methods. Consequently, the effects of the synthesizing method and the coating weight percentage on the NMC-60 performance are presented.

Manual disassembly of the lithium-ion battery (LIB) modules of electric vehicles (EVs) for recycling is time-consuming, expensive, and dangerous for technicians or workers. Dangers associated with high voltage and thermal runaway make a robotic system suitable for the automated or semi-automated disassembly of EV batteries. In this paper, we explore battery disassembly using industrial robots. To understand the disassembly process, human workers were monitored, and the operations were analyzed and broken down into gripping and cutting operations. These operations were selected for automation, and path planning was performed offline. For the gripper, a linear quadratic regulator (LQR) control system was implemented. A system identification method was also implemented in the form of a batch least squares estimator to form the state space representation of the planar linkages used in the control strategy of the gripper. A high-speed rotary cut-off wheel was adapted for the robot to perform precise cutting at various points in the battery module case. The simulation results were used to program an industrial robot for experimental validation. The precision of the rotary cutter allowed for a more direct disassembly method as opposed to the standard manual method. It was shown that the robot was almost twice as fast in cutting but slower in pick and place operations. It has been shown that the best option for disassembly of a LIB pack is a human–robot collaboration, where the robot could make efficient cuts on the battery pack and the technician could quickly sort the battery components and remove connectors or fasteners with which the robot would struggle. This collaboration also reduces the danger encountered by the technician because the risk of shorting battery cells while cutting would be eliminated, but the time efficiency would be significantly improved. This paper demonstrates that a robot offers both safety and time improvements to the current manual disassembly process for EV LIBs.