Green Transport Delta – Electrification (GTD-E)

Work package 6 of the GTD-E project focusses on the recycling of lithium ion batteries. This report provides an overview of the developments in lithium ion battery technology in the context of recycling technologies and capacity. The composition of the components in Li-ion batteries currently being put on market as well as expected future battery technologies are described. This is done with the aim of creating insight in what materials should be taken into account in future recycling facilities. In addition, a brief market outlook shows what quantities of the different lithium-ion battery technologies may be expected to be put on market and eventually in recycling.

Work package 6 of the GTD-E project focusses on the recycling of lithium ion batteries. This report gives a detailed description of the field of lithium ion batteries recycling in Europe, including a proposal for (a combination of) recycling technologies for a new recycling plant. The focus is on hydrometallurgical processes over pyrometallurgical processes because the former are considered to have advantages over the latter with respect to recovery of lithium (i.e., losses in the slag), energy use, and concerns over health and environmental impact. A selection of five processes, consisting of both mixed precipitation and solvent extraction processes, is studied in more detail using a semi-quantitative approach to assess the (dis)advantages of every process and come to an optimal combination of process steps.

Work package 6 of the GTD-E project focusses on the recycling of lithium ion batteries. This report focusses on the assessment and optimisation of a pretreatment process. The process assessment is done by determining
1) the black mass recovery efficiency by setting up a mass balance for the process,
2) the quality of the output materials by looking at its chemical and physical composition,
3) efficiency of the removal of the electrolyte by looking at the mass balance and analysing various output streams,
4) the impact of the partial pyrolysis due to shredding of charged batteries on quality of output materials by varying the charging state of the input materials. Additionally, the ability to increase the recovery of cathode active materials was studied by testing several extra processing steps for the residual fraction.

The main objective of the work presented here, is to further build on the earlier published report Literature assessment of Li-ion battery recycling steps. This is done by the development of a perspective on a scalable and flexible battery recycling process by setting up a blueprint for battery recycling and evaluate it through the preliminary techno-economic assessment. The development of the methodology used in this work was a major goal of this project, with the benefit that it is also suitable to apply for alternative metal recycling processes or new iterations of techno-economic assessment with better specified information.