As electric vehicles and other technology continues to advance and become more commercially available, the need to procure that material sustainably will continue to grow also.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has granted an early concept grant for exploratory research, or an EAGER award, of $300,00 to continue Youngstown State University Professor of Chemistry Doug Genna's work in improving recycling methods of these batteries.

Genna's work revolves around his research in metal organic frameworks (MOFs), a porous crystalline compound of metal clusters and how to better understand the purification process of water, removing drugs, lead and simulated oil spills.

With this grant, Genna will apply this research and methods to understand how to pull lithium out of what is called "black mass," which is the term used for the by-product of lithium-ion batteries that are at the end of their life cycle.

"If we are successful, this has the potential to change America's source of lithium batteries," Genna said.

The work is being done in collaboration with SUNY Albany, to which half of the grant was awarded to look into other metals that can be pulled out of black mass.

According to the EPA, safe recycling of lithium-ion batteries at the end of their lives conserves the critical minerals and other valuable materials that are used in batteries and is a more sustainable approach than disposal.

Demand for lithium-ion batteries has grown so fast over the last few years that several companies like Redwood Materials, formed by a former Tesla executive, and start-ups like Ascend Elements have built or announced plans to build lithium-ion recycling plants aimed at harvesting critical materials from batteries to be reused in new products.

Prior to this, the NSF awarded the lab a Research Undergraduate Institution grant of $350,000 for the study of MOFs totaling in over half a million dollars for the department since summer.