Portable solar powered Electricity Supplies Using Recovered Batteries (PESURB)

Millions of functional rechargeable lithium ion batteries are disposed of each year. Some of these are recycled

to recover the materials they are made of, but this is expensive and the recovered value is low. A better, and

more sustainable approach, is to identify those batteries that have remaining functional lifetimes and to use

them in new applications. This project is developing a process whereby these end of life batteries can be

recovered, rapidly tested, and integrated into portable, low cost, lightweight, solar cell rechargeable power

supply units that can be used to charge mobile phones and to power low energy lighting. There are around 600

million people globally with mobile phones that have no access to electricity at home. To charge them, they

often have to walk for many hours to charging stations to connect their phones to car battery-based chargers; a

privilege for which there are high charges. The power supply units developed in this project will provide low

cost energy for phone charging and low energy lighting applications, using a circular economic approach to the

reuse of lithium ion batteries.