Researchers aim to regenerate EV battery electrodes instead of recycling them

Cornell University researchers developed Direct Electrode-to-Electrode Regeneration (DEER), a process that restored aged EV battery capacity to 95% of original value in laboratory tests while reducing processing costs by 56% compared to conventional recycling and lowering water consumption and air pollutant emissions.

The process remains in early laboratory stages; it is not yet deployed at industrial scale, and its viability for heavily degraded batteries or different cell chemistries has not been established.