Battery Recycling

This presentation provides an in-depth analysis of battery recycling, highlighting technological advancements, regulatory complexities, and market dynamics impacting the industry. It integrates comprehensive research on patents, investment patterns, and cost structures, addressing critical economic and policy-related challenges that influence the future of battery recycling.

Currently, the North American recycling supply chain is not a complete closed loop within the region, and the challenges include: (1) "leakage" of black mass to Asia, (2) economies of scale sufficient to ensure profitability, and (3) lack of pCAM factories. This presentation will discuss the challenges and business opportunities for establishing a closed loop supply chain within North America in the future.

Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) recycling is a complex process including deep-discharging, shredding/granulating, black mass drying, electrolyte recovery with gas treatment, and finally classification and sorting of black mass, copper, aluminum, plastic and ferrous metals. Many hazards exist including exposure to combustible dust and flammable, corrosive, and toxic electrolytes. This presentation reviews chemical industry-level engineering design and safety protocols with hazard and operability studies to prevent accidents and ensure process safety. Recycling lithium-ion batteries requires chemical industry-level safety protocols—like HAZOPs (hazard and operability studies) and PHAs (process hazard analyses)—to prevent accidents and ensure process safety. Dust (e.g., generated at drying and sorting stages) and electrolyte handling are major safety challenges. The dust can be combustible; electrolytes are often flammable and toxic. Both require controlled handling, vapor recovery systems, and gas-tight equipment to meet environmental regulations. Involving experienced chemical engineers and adopting a holistic safety culture are essential for successful, incident-free battery recycling operations.

AVL presents a design-focused approach to minimizing battery carbon footprint and improving recyclability. This session explores how engineering decisions around materials, construction, and manufacturing affect sustainability and end-of-life recovery. Case studies from AVL’s benchmarking and teardown analyses illustrate how specific design choices support circularity and reduce CO2 impact. We also examine how design aligns with regulatory frameworks, including EU Battery Passport implementation.

This presentation discusses how to get the most electric miles from battery material, as quickly as possible, to minimize material requirements during rapid growth periods. Non-standard strategies offered include using smaller batteries, extracting miles faster, recycling sooner, limiting second-life applications, and reallocating routes within mixed fleets. Demand for critical materials can be reduced by a factor larger than by battery size reduction alone, easing scarcity concerns.

Handling and transporting aged or defective battery cells is a key challenge in establishing an efficient battery recycling infrastructure. An important prerequisite for such a system is the development of suitable methods for the pre-treatment and deactivation of lithium-ion and lithium-metal batteries. Additionally, the extraction of lithium is getting more attention to achieve an overall better recycling efficiency. Here, we present some of our latest results on the topic.

The lithium-ion battery market includes applications to address needs for portable power from consumer electronics to transportation. The service of these applications and recycling of their materials is at the forefront of the reestablishment of the North American supply chain of critical materials refining and manufacturing. The industrialization of this requires processes and designs that are appropriate to the advanced materials and innovative applications, in the first place, by design to seize the opportunity for US dominance in the next generation of lithium-ion battery manufacturing. Dr. Sloop will discuss a three dimensional approach for this: Deactivation, Direct Recycling, and Design.

We assess the economics of electric vehicle (EV) battery repurposing by estimating the maximum price a repurposer could pay for used EV battery packs to manufacture second-life stationary storage systems at life-adjusted costs competitive with new systems. Using a process-based cost model of a UL 1974-certified repurposing facility, we estimate that processing used EV batteries costs $19/kWh at the pack level and $53/kWh at the module level for a baseline annual production volume of 500 MWh, not accounting for the additional labor and components required to produce a complete system. We then estimate lifespans of NMC622, NCA, and LFP EV battery packs in a variety of second-life applications across first-life use intensities. We find that for LFP packs, which degrade relatively slowly and can have long second lives, repurposers can pay a maximum of between $3 and $70/kWh to acquire a used pack, depending on its first-life use conditions and intended second-life application. For NMC and NCA packs, which degrade more quickly, repurposers can pay a maximum of between $37/kWh and $65/kWh to acquire a used pack. Our estimates suggest that repurposing is reliably more profitable than recycling for LFP packs, while for NMC and NCA packs, repurposing is more profitable only under a limited set of conditions.

Market estimations predict second-life battery applications growth, but the reality is that most of retired Li-ion batteries are recycled. We talk about the challenges and how to solve them.

Smartville has developed an integrated platform that enables the efficient assessment, trading, and repurposing of used EV batteries for second-life applications. Combining its proprietary Periscope diagnostic tool and Battery-connect repurposing solution, Smartville helps recyclers, fleet operators, and energy developers to address retired EV batteries. This presentation will highlight the technology, data workflows, and real-world use cases that drive Smartville’s mission to extend battery life, reduce waste, and unlock new value.