In the News

Boston 25 featured a report on the university becoming an inaugural member of ReCell, the first U.S. Department of Energy center focused on lithium-ion battery recycling. Yan Wang, William Smith Dean’s Professor of Mechanical Engineering, was noted for developing the groundbreaking process for recycling lithium-ion batteries that can recover and reuse cathode materials regardless of their chemistry, will lead the project.

The Worcester Business Journal reported that Battery Resourcers, a lithium battery recycling company developed by Yan Wang, the William Smith Foundation Dean’s Professor, and colleagues, received a $174,000 grant from the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center. 

Charged, a publication dedicated to news in the electric vehicles industry, reported on a WPI materials engineering research team, led by mechanical engineering professor Yan Wang. The team received $1 million to extend development of a novel process to recycle spent lithium-ion batteries and produce new cathode materials.

A WPI materials engineering research team led by Yan Wang, William Smith Foundation Dean’s Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, will extend development of its novel process to recycle spent lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries and produce new cathode materials that are increasingly being adopted by automotive battery makers to reduce cost and increase energy density.

Yan Wang, professor of mechanical engineering, was interviewed for the Forbes article. Noted as an academic working on the problem of recycling li-ion batteries, Wang says “Battery Resourcers (a company he founded) has developed a process for recovering cathode materials like cobalt, as well as aluminum, copper, plastics, graphite, methanol and other chemicals used in the recycling process.” 

The article profiles Battery Resourcers, an innovative company that began at WPI, and its approach to recycling lithium-ion batteries.