Ing. Anna Pražanová

The rapid adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) has increased the demand for efficient methods to assess the state of health (SoH) of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). Accurate and prompt evaluations are essential for safety, battery life extension, and performance optimization. While traditional techniques such as electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) are commonly used to monitor battery degradation, acoustic emission (AE) analysis is emerging as a promising complementary method. AE’s sensitivity to mechanical changes within the battery structure offers significant advantages, including speed and non-destructive assessment, enabling evaluations without disassembly. This capability is particularly beneficial for diagnosing second-life batteries and streamlining decision-making regarding the management of used batteries. Moreover, AE enhances diagnostics by facilitating early detection of potential issues, optimizing maintenance, and improving the reliability and longevity of battery systems. Importantly, AE is a non-destructive technique and belongs to the passive method category, as it does not introduce any external energy into the system but instead detects naturally occurring acoustic signals during the battery’s operation. Integrating AE with other analytical techniques can create a comprehensive tool for continuous battery condition monitoring and predictive maintenance, which is crucial in applications where battery reliability is vital, such as in EVs and energy storage systems. This review not only examines the potential of AE techniques in battery health monitoring but also underscores the need for further research and adoption of these techniques, encouraging the academic community and industry professionals to explore and implement these methods. © 2025 by the authors.

Recycling spent lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) is critical for enhancing environmental sustainability and resource conservation; however, the environmental and energy impacts of LIB recycling are not yet comprehensively understood due to the diverse applications of LIB cells and the variability in recycling technologies. This study presents a gate-to-gate life cycle assessment (LCA) of a recycling pre-treatment process at a small-scale plant in the Czech Republic, focusing on spent LIBs from electric vehicles (EVs) and consumer electronics cells (CECs). Using the SimaPro LCA software and the Ecoinvent 3.9 database, the analysis evaluated the environmental impact of recycling operations across several categories, including climate change, eutrophication, freshwater, and resource use, minerals and metals. The findings reveal that the recycling pre-treatment process for CECs achieves greater benefits in climate change mitigation compared to EV batteries, with a 5% lower impact for climate change associated with EV batteries relative to CECs. Moreover, the study highlights the effectiveness of optimized recycling practices in alleviating environmental burdens. A notable finding is the significance of secondary material recovery, particularly metals such as copper and aluminium, as these materials can substitute for primary raw materials, thereby minimizing resource use and reducing emissions. These aspects emphasize the need for high recovery efficiency to enhance environmental benefits. However, further research is essential to fully comprehend the environmental impacts of LIB recycling and to resolve uncertainties concerning battery composition and the effectiveness of different recycling technologies.

Lithium is crucial in lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), serving as a main component of the electrolyte and cathode. Elements such as cobalt, nickel, and manganese are also vital for high performance, energy density, and stability. This study aimed to examine the behaviour of end-of-life cathode material (LiNi0.6Mn0.2Co0.2O2) and its valuable metals after exposure to temperatures between 100 and 400 °C, comparing it with untreated material. The lithium content cannot be reliably determined by conventional analytical methods, so inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES) was chosen for this purpose. For ICP-OES measurements, samples were dissolved in different solvents for a specified time, and the concentrations of lithium, nickel, manganese, and cobalt were measured. From the measured values, their theoretical yields were calculated. Due to the annealing at given temperatures and subsequent dissolution, this step can be considered as the first stage of the pyrometallurgical-hydrometallurgical process used in battery recycling. The study was complemented by further analyses to monitor the effect of annealing temperatures on the properties of the material. Based on the results, it was found that the highest theoretical yield in this temperature range was for material annealed at 400 °C and dissolved in 20 % nitric acid for 4 h.

The significant deployment of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) within a wide application field covering small consumer electronics, light and heavy means of transport, such as e-bikes, e-scooters, and electric vehicles (EVs), or energy storage stationary systems will inevitably lead to generating notable amounts of spent batteries in the coming years. Considering the environmental perspective, material resource sustainability, and terms of the circular economy, recycling represents a highly prospective strategy for LIB end-of-life (EOL) management. In contrast with traditional, large-scale, implemented recycling methods, such as pyrometallurgy or hydrometallurgy, direct recycling technology constitutes a promising solution for LIB EOL treatment with outstanding environmental benefits, including reduction of energy consumption and emission footprint, and weighty economic viability. This work comprehensively assesses the limitations and challenges of state-of-the-art, implemented direct recycling methods for spent LIB cathode and anode material treatment. The introduced approaches include solid-state sintering, electrochemical relithiation in organic and aqueous electrolytes, and ionothermal, solution, and eutectic relithiation methods. Since most direct recycling techniques are still being developed and implemented primarily on a laboratory scale, this review identifies and discusses potential areas for optimization to facilitate forthcoming large-scale industrial implementation.

This study presents a comprehensive cradle-to-gate Life Cycle Assessment of fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs), providing a comparative assessment against alternative and fossil fuel-driven counterparts. The research focuses on hydrogen as a fuel source, emphasizing two key production methods: natural gas reforming and water electrolysis. The scope of the study is set to the Czech Republic environment. Diverse sources of electric generation, such as wind and photovoltaics, are considered to supply the electrolysis process. The energy source mix predictions are set to year 2030 up to 2050. The feasibility of transitioning towards greater utilization of renewable energy sources within the context of privately owned vehicles is investigated in this work. Specifically, the study examines the exact part of the vehicle life cycle, starting with production to the use phase, with a consideration of the car’s lifetime, aiming to provide a nuanced understanding of their environmental footprint and clear comparability with each other. This study highlights the significant potential for reducing the environmental impacts of personal vehicles through the usage of hydrogen. With FCEVs emitting zero direct emissions, the total environmental impact is directly tied to the process of fuel production. Producing hydrogen through electrolysis, particularly when powered by photovoltaic or wind energy can significantly lower its emissions, especially in terms of greenhouse gas emissions.

Recycling lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) have become increasingly important in response to expanding electromobility. This paper is focused on evaluating the environmental impacts (EIs) of recycling pre-treatment of three types of LIBs with black mass as its product. A detailed gate-to-gate Life Cycle Assessment study was conducted to obtain EIs of the recycling process. The benefits of LIBs recycling pre-treatment and significant recovery of secondary aluminum for compared battery types are highlighted in the analysis. This paper points out that the varying chemistry of the compared LIBs does not affect the resulting EIs of the recycling pre-treatment procedures.

Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) play a pivotal role in various sectors such as transportation, aerospace, and stationary systems. Accurate estimation of their state-of-charge (SOC) is crucial for efficient utilization within battery management systems. This work presents an enhanced SOC estimation method for LIBs, leveraging both open-circuit voltage (OCV) and hysteresis models. A co-estimation architecture employing two estimators is proposed, firstly focusing on battery model parameter estimation, and secondly utilizing pseudo-OCV instead of voltage measurements as output. This modification offers enhanced accuracy, reduced reliance on extensive laboratory testing, and improved robustness, especially in applications with rapid temperature fluctuations. The proposed method is evaluated through dynamic discharge profile tests across temperature levels ranging from 5 to 45 °C. Root-mean-square errors of SOC estimation for various temperatures were improved from the baseline approach (0.0185-0.0420) down to 0.0090-0.0280 in the proposed approach, showcasing the effectiveness of incorporating hysteresis models into SOC estimation.

Recycling lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) is crucial for environmental sustainability and resource conservation. However, current recycling procedures, particularly for smaller battery formats, pose several challenges. With the increasing demands of the circular economy for LIB waste treatment, it is essential to identify and address obstacles associated with concurrent processes. Thus, this study focuses on characterizing and examining the dilemmas of electrochemical discharging of cylindrical LIB cells. It primarily examines the quantity and composition of released battery mass from nickel-aluminium-cobalt (NCA) LIB cells using aqueous discharging via solutions of sodium chloride (NaCl), sodium hydroxide (NaOH), and sodium nitrate (NaNO3) within the 5-30 wt. % range. Additionally, the work monitored several procedure parameters, including the voltage profiles during discharging, the extent of battery contacts and casing damage after discharging, the character and material composition of the obtained battery mass, and the composition of the wastewater obtained after separating the solid product from waste solutions. Consequently, it was determined that the industrial implementation of these procedures, including material leakage and disposal, may incur economic losses of up to 1560 USD/tonne due to metal loss.

Combination of affordable organic dyes of high quantum yield with silicon can be an interesting way fordevelopment of highly efficient thin film photovoltaic cells utilizing silicon sensitisation. This work is focused on investigating the energy transfer processes including photon tunnelling from photosensitive molecules of BASF R305 high quantum yield dye to silicon substrate. Energy transfer from dye molecules to silicon substrate is evaluated by measuring the quenching of molecular photoluminescence lifetime using time-correlated single photon counting (TCSPC) technique. Energy transfer is further studied in dependence on dye layer thickness. The results can be useful for further studies leading to design of ultrathin silicon solar cells.

Battery recycling involves the recovery of materials from end-of-life (EOL) batteries, which are subsequently reused in the manufacturing of new products. Metals such as cobalt, lithium, nickel, manganese, aluminium, and copper are essential components of the electrodes of common lithium-ion batteries. In light of the growing demand for advancements in battery recycling, there is a critical need to start systematically documenting the chemistry of different types of batteries and to monitor the changes within their internal composition between the different states of charge, such as full charge, full discharge, deep discharge or shipping-state. In this work, a new methodology for a complex, quick, cheap, and effective material composition survey is presented. This methodology was applied to three types of cylindrical (18650) cells with two different cathode materials, specifically nickel cobalt aluminium (NCA) and nickel manganese cobalt (NMC), all with a capacity range from 3350 to 3500 mAh. This work offers a comprehensive, step-by-step description of the versatile battery research process, serving as the foundation for a streamlined and effective methodology for obtaining selected chemical and material parameters. The research endeavours to compare the material composition of lithium-ion cells at various states of charge to assess recycling potential and establish a database containing battery parameters. The results are essential for the automation and roboticization of the advanced recycling sector.

Environmental concerns push for a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and technologies with a low carbon footprint. In the transportation sector, this drives the transition toward electric vehicles (EVs), which are nowadays mainly based on lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). As the number of produced EVs is rapidly growing, a large amount of waste batteries is expected in the future. Recycling seems to be one of the most promising end-of-life (EOL) methods; it reduces raw material consumption in battery production and the environmental burden. Thus, this work introduces a comprehensive pre-recycling material characterization of waste nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) LIB cells from a fully electric battery electric vehicle (BEV), which represents a basis for cost-effective and environmentally friendly recycling focusing on the efficiency of the implemented technique. The composition of the NCM 622 battery cell was determined; it included a LiNi0.6Co0.2Mn0.2O2 spinel on a 15 μm Al-based current collector (cathode), a graphite layer on 60 μm copper foil (anode), 25 μm PE/PVDF polymer separator, and a LiPF6 salt electrolyte with a 1:3 ratio in primary solvents DMC and DEC. The performed research was based on a series of X-ray, infrared (IR) measurements, gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS), and inductively coupled plasma–optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) characterization of an aqueous solution with dissolved electrolytes. These results will be used in subsequent works devoted to optimizing the most suitable recycling technique considering the environmental and economic perspectives.

The last decade has seen a significant increase in electromobility. With this trend, it will be necessary to start dealing with the subsequent recycling and disposal of electric vehicles, including the batteries. Currently, the battery is one of the most expensive components of an electric vehicle, which in part hinders their sufficient competitiveness with the internal combustion engine. Furthermore, the lifetime of a battery for use in an electric vehicle is assumed to be 8–10 years/160,000 km, after which the battery capacity drops to 80% of the initial capacity. However, it transpires that a battery at the end of its life in an electric vehicle does not need to be disposed of immediately, but can be used in other applications wherein the emphasis is not so strictly on an excellent power and capacity capability related to its volume or weight. Thus, reusing batteries can help reduce their cost for use in electric vehicles, increase their utility value, and reduce the environmental impact of batteries. This paper discusses methods for researching battery aging in electric vehicles, testing methods for batteries during the transition from first life to second life, and prospective battery second-life use and its specifics. The main contribution of this perspective article is to provide a comprehensive view of the current state of second-life batteries and an overview of the challenges that need to be overcome in order to use them on a large industrial scale.

The popularity of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) as crucial power sources has increased in recent years. LIBs represent a perspective technology for recycling because they comprise a high portion of valuable metals, such as nickel, manganese, cobalt, or lithium, and other metals, including aluminium, copper, and iron. Battery discharging represents an essential step in end-of-life (EOL) pretreatment, as it reduces the risk of fire or explosion in further processing. As a simple, quick, and inexpensive technique, an electrochemical discharging process via salt-based solutions is preferred for cylindrical cells. Nevertheless, it is necessary to consider the composition of obtained waste products and the possible environmental risks leading to their safe and non-hazardous EOL processing. This work evaluated discharging efficiency and environmental perspective for cylindrical LIB cells, which were treated using NaCl solution. All battery cells were discharged to the safe voltage limit (0.75 V) within 24 hours. Major organic components, including volatile solvents with high toxic hazards, such as carbonic acid esters, methyl salicylate, and propanoic acid esters, were identified in the waste solutions using gas chromatography with mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Moreover, the metal proportion in the solution was determined using inductively coupled plasma - optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) analysis; it is recommended to recover metals from the wastewater before EOL or cleaning treatment.

Emissions reduction has been tightened worldwide, especially in automotive. Electric vehicles (EVs) are a suitable solution that can meet the strict requirements in CO2 production and high user torque and speed requests. Therefore, a significant increase in demand for EVs has occurred. This growing trend results in increased production of new vehicles, raw materials consumption, and the number of waste vehicles and batteries on the market. Solution methods are being sought: the recycling process is one of the most promising. This work provides a simplified overview of the economic evaluation of the recycling process of spent lithium-ion batteries from EVs in conditions of the Czech Republic. The described technique evaluates a combination of the pyrometallurgical and hydrometallurgical methods (with the process efficiency above 95 %) and the high quality of output products. Moreover, this work presents future scenarios considering the changes due to EU legislation.

The popularity of CubeSats has grown in the last few years. CubeSats are small-sized, low-weight satellites commonly used in low Earth orbit for remote sensing or communications. Their most considerable benefits are their high flexibility, quick lead time, and significantly lower price than 'classical' satellites, due to their vast use of commercial off-the-shelf components. Lithium-ion batteries are being used as energy storage within these components. Batteries are necessary for the spacecraft; they supply energy when there is not enough generation from solar panels, especially during eclipses. The batteries undertake a series of operations during missions in various conditions that influence their lifetime and performance. The performance of these batteries can be modelled via an electrical-circuit model. Thus, a set of characterization and degradation tests considering cycling aging were performed to identify the cell behaviour throughout an expected battery life in a CubeSat. The aging trends of the battery model parameters based on the provided parametrization procedure were observed and evaluated. Moreover, the developed model reaches high accuracy for a mission profile with the root-mean-square-error below 9 mV.

During recent years, emissions reduction has been tightened worldwide. Therefore, there is an increasing demand for electric vehicles (EVs) that can meet emission requirements. The growing number of new EVs increases the consumption of raw materials during production. Simultaneously, the number of used EVs and subsequently retired lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) that need to be disposed of is also increasing. According to the current approaches, the recycling process technology appears to be one of the most promising solutions for the End-of-Life (EOL) LIBs—recycling and reusing of waste materials would reduce raw materials production and environmental burden. According to this performed literature review, 263 publications about “Recycling of Lithium-ion Batteries from Electric Vehicles” were classified into five sections: Recycling Processes, Battery Composition, Environmental Impact, Economic Evaluation, and Recycling & Rest. The whole work reviews the current-state of publications dedicated to recycling LIBs from EVs in the techno-environmental-economic summary. This paper covers the first part of the review work; it is devoted to the recycling technology processes and points out the main study fields in recycling that were found during this work.

Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) are crucial for consumer electronics, complex energy storage systems, space applications, and the automotive industry. The increasing requirements for decarbonization and CO2 emissions reduction affect the composition of new production. Thus, the entire automotive sector experiences its turning point; the production capacities of new internal combustion engine vehicles are limited, and the demand for electric vehicles (EVs) has continuously increased over the past years. The growing number of new EVs leads to an increasing amount of automotive waste, namely spent LIBs. Recycling appears to be the most suitable solution for lowering EV prices and reducing environmental impacts; however, it is still not a well-established process. This work is the second part of the review collection based on the performed literature survey, where more than 250 publications about “Recycling of Lithium-ion Batteries from Electric Vehicles” were divided into five sections: Recycling Processes, Battery Composition, Environmental Impact, Economic Evaluation, and Recycling and Rest. This paper reviews and summarizes 162 publications dedicated to recycling procedures and their environmental or economic perspective. Both reviews cover the techno-environmental economic impacts of recycling spent LIBs from EVs published until 2021

Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) are one of the most popular energy storage systems. Due to their excellent performance, they are widely used in portable consumer electronics and electric vehicles (EVs). The ever-increasing requirements for global carbon dioxide CO2 emission reduction inhibit the production of new combustion vehicles. Thus, the demand for EVs increases, as well as the number of spent LIBs. Due to increases in raw materials saving and reduction in energy and environmental impacts, recycling is one of the most promising solutions for end-of-life (EOL) treatment for spent LIBs. This work describes the first step in recycling the LIBs nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) based module from a full battery electric vehicle (BEV) holding its high recycling efficiency and considering the process costs and environmental impact. This paper is devoted to module-to-cell disassembly, discharge state characterization measurements, and material analysis of its components based on x-ray fluorescence (XRF) and diffraction (XRD).

The ever-increasing requirements for global carbon dioxide CO2 emission reduction decrease the production of new internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs). On the contrary, the demand for electric vehicles (EVs) increases along with the number of spent lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). Recycling LIBs seems to be one of the most promising options for end-of-life (EOL) treatment solutions; however, many process effects of currently used battery compounds are still being addressed, e.g., the safety and potential risks of wastewater, battery scrap, or leaks into the air. In this work, the LIB nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) cell electrolyte was characterized in wastewater using gas chromatography with mass spectrometry (GC-MS), inductively coupled plasma with optical emission spectrometer (ICP-OES), and the residues of toxic substances bound to nm-μm valuable metal particles in battery scrap were determined by x-ray fluorescence (XRF).

State-of-health (SOH) estimation is an essential but challenging functionality for batteries. In this work, a SOH estimation for Lithium-ion batteries in CubeSats is in focus. A proposed method is based on offline model parameter identification from satellite telemetry. Its laboratory performance was 2.26 % and 0.74 % root-mean-square-error for capacity and resistance, respectively.

Sn–Bi alloys are desirable candidates for soldering components on printed circuit boards (PCBs) because of their low melting point and reduced cost. While certain tin–bismuth solders are well characterized many new alloys in this family have been developed which need proper characterization. The following study looks at the behavior of four different Sn–Bi alloys—traditional 42Sn58Bi and 42Sn57Bi1Ag and two new tin–bismuth alloys—in solder paste during the reflow soldering process. Each alloy was processed using different reflow profiles that had varying times above liquidus (TALs) and peak temperatures. The PCBs were then analyzed to see how the processing variables influenced wetting, voiding, microstructure, intermetallic layer composition, and thickness. After analysis, the PCBs were then subjected to thermal cycling experiments to see how reflow profile impacted microstructure evolution. The results demonstrated that reflow profile affects properties such as metal wetting and voiding. It does not however, greatly impact key metallurgical properties such as intermetallic layer thickness.

Nowadays, Lithium-ion batteries are as the most preferable technology for consumer electronics. They found their way also to electric vehicles or even satellites, mainly due to their high energy density and long life. In the applications, the batteries require a battery management system for safe and optimal operation. Often, state estimation functionalities (as state-of-charge or state-ofhealth) require a running battery model. Therefore, an electrical circuit model (ECM) that accurately captures a battery behavior in suitable complexity is needed. This paper presents a three steps parametrization technique of ECM for Lithium-ion batteries based on laboratory experiments. Furthermore, an analysis of SOC and temperature dependence of battery parameters has been conducted. The developed ECM is validated, and its accuracy is evaluated by Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) and Maximal Absolute Error (MaE).

The aim of this work was to evaluate the mechanical and thermomechanical properties of structures prepared by 3D printing from biodegradable thermoplastic polyester PLA (Polylactic Acid). PLA structures and their manufacture by 3D printing can be a cost-saving and ecological alternative to the current production of insulation systems, e.g. condenser bushings or substrates for printed circuit boards. For further practical application, the knowledge of the change of mechanical and thermal properties in dependence on process parameters is necessary. In this research, PLA test samples were first prepared at different printing speeds and nozzle temperatures. Then, they were characterized by thermomechanical analysis (TMA), dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA), and tensile tests. The data showed that the decrease of printing temperature remarkably increased the dimension change evaluated from TMA measurement of 3D printed structures. On the other hand, no significant differences were found between samples printed with different printing speeds. Our results should lead to a better understanding of how to set up the 3D printing process properly.