Argonne National Laboratory engineer's research could help keep electric vehicle batteries out of landfills

CHICAGO (CBS) -- Electric vehicles may be a hot way to reduce your carbon footprint, but they're not 100% environmentally friendly. Most times, the batteries running the cars aren't re-usable.

That might be changing. CBS 2 Morning Insider Lauren Victory introduces us to an Illinois engineer who says she's discovered a way to keep billions of batteries out of landfills.

The science inside the Argonne National Laboratory might make your head spin, but Lauren Valentino is here to simplify the complex; literally.

The Department of Energy engineer is developing a way to break down hard-to-reuse batteries.

"We have to be able to divert some of this waste from landfills," she said.

Historically, recycling batteries was tricky business.

A single AA battery contains multiple, entangled layers.

"We need to separate the valuable components from the contaminants," Valentino said. "Our main goal in this project is to develop easy, cheap, and scalable processes that can be used to recycle battery materials."

The work is becoming increasingly important as more and more electric vehicles hit the roads.

Valentino's recycling experiment begins with crushing and shredding. Battery bits become something called black mass that's liquified when mixed with acid.

"We have been creating the materials that go inside the separation device," Valentino said.

Her mock set-up for our cameras demonstrated the last step: de-ionization.

Imagine that process being used to recycle the more than 3 million electric vehicle batteries expected in our global stockpile by 2025.

"As a scientist, you're always happy and excited to see that your experiments are working," Valentino said.

Getting charged up to make the world more sustainable.

Valentino says the technique she's developing can also be used to filter water and recycle biofuel. Part of her research is figuring out how to scale up her experiment to be used worldwide.