‘Even if you’re trying to do something good’: more-than-chemical separations of lithium recycling in a Norwegian science laboratory
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: • This article shows the complex entanglements of chemical laboratory work towards lithium recycling from end-of-life car batteries with colonial modernity, particularly in the Norwegian context, and asks what thinking with colonial modernity does or does not do for crafting more-than-chemical connections. • Norway's green shift includes a rapid and large-scale adoption of electric cars, which brings new challenges around the recyclability of lithium-ion batteries. Lithium from car batteries is not recycled on industrial scale today, and is commonly lost in smelters' slag. To reduce the need for mining and wasting lithium, its recyclability presents an increasingly pressing issue. • Through ethnographic research in a university laboratory in Norway, this article delves deeper into what 'good recycling' might mean in the eyes of a team of scientists experimenting with lithium recovery using green chemistry methods. • The article foregrounds hopes, doubts, questions and concerns the scientists aspiring a green process for lithium recycling have, and highlights the imaginative and material separations to which envisioned 'closed loop' lithium currently relates, beyond chemical processes. • Key challenges identified are that closed loop lithium recycling knowledge is accumulated and concentrated in oil-wealthy Norway, through dynamics of appropriation that perpetuate uneven geographies of green transitions; that lithium recycling processes are tied to often-forgotten material requirements and additions - identified as 'open ends' of the closed loop; and that 'green' lithium recycling legitimises overconsumption of lithium in a vicious cycle that reproduces or even increases rather than minimises the need for primary mining. Norway's green shift includes a rapid and large-scale adoption of electric cars, which brings new challenges around the recyclability of lithium-ion batteries. Lithium from car batteries is not recycled on industrial scale today, and is commonly lost in smelters' slag. To reduce the need for mining and wasting lithium, its recyclability presents an increasingly pressing issue. Through ethnographic research in a university laboratory in Norway, this article delves deeper into what 'good recycling' might mean in the eyes of a team of scientists experimenting with lithium recovery using 'green chemistry' methods. The article foregrounds hopes, doubts, questions and concerns expressed by the scientists aspiring a green process for lithium recycling, and highlights the imaginative and material separations to which envisioned 'closed loop' lithium currently relates, beyond chemical processes. Key challenges identified, using the ethnographic concept 'more-than-chemical separations', are that closed loop lithium recycling knowledge is accumulated and concentrated in oil-wealthy Norway, through dynamics of appropriation that perpetuate uneven geographies of green transitions; that lithium recycling processes are tied to often-forgotten material requirements and additions - identified as 'open ends' of the closed loop; and that 'greening' lithium recycling may legitimise overconsumption of lithium in a vicious cycle that reproduces or even increases rather than minimises the need for primary mining. The article closes with reflections on the need for more-than-chemical connections, as openings for imagining a liveable future together in which green lithium recycling could have a key role.
Author: Michelle Geraerts
Institution: University of Amsterdam
Language: English
Subfield: Mechanical Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,470
Awards: G434337789, G720517441
OpenAlex ID: W7104416451