Selective separation could help alleviate critical metals shortage

https://news.mit.edu/2021/rare-metal-separation-shortage-1217

"separate rare metals, such as the cobalt in a lithium-ion battery, from mixed-metal materials... allow the metals to remain in solid form and be separated without dissolving the material. This avoids traditional but costly liquid separation methods that require significant energy. The researchers developed processing conditions for 56 elements and tested these conditions on 15 elements... could reduce the capital costs of metal separation between 65 and 95 percent from mixed-metal oxides"