On May 20, 2021, the Robotix-Academy was present at Remetac with an exciting presentation. Prof. Matthias Vette-Steinkamp explained how used batteries of e-cars can be recycled.
The battery of an e-car has a life cycle of eight years – that doesn’t seem like much when you consider how long a gasoline tank lasts. But what happens to the battery after those years? Simply disposing of it is not an option. The battery gets a second chance:
The raw materials in a battery are valuable and must be recovered. Due to the size and weight of the e-car battery, they have a lot more residual energy stored. The high energy makes a removal and disassembly very complex and the way to reuse is long.
A solution for the complex disassembly, which also offers an advantage for car workshops, is a decentralized disassembly system, which Prof. Vette-Steinkamp presented to the expert audience.
The system consists of a container in which vehicles from various manufacturers can be disassembled and the battery removed. An integrated robot system opens the battery, performs the inspection, disconnects all cables, removes the modules and discharges the battery.
The disassembly system is implemented through an interaction of different approaches, such as human-technology interaction or robot telepresence. Robot telepresence enables the employee to manipulate the robot system from the outside, e.g. with a joystick.