Increasing Resource Efficiency in the Recycling of Lithium-ion Batteries Through Advanced Mechanical Processing

With mechanical processing, materials such as copper, iron and aluminum can be recovered from the material flow at an early stage and be assigned to specific recycling routes. This was tested in the BMBF-funded DemoSens project (FKZ 03XP0314A) with thermally deactivated LIBs. The focus of this research was on the recovery of pure solid metals from the periphery and the metal foils from the electrode. The results show that the material flow can be separated into aluminum, steel and copper. However, the output fractions must also be subjected to further metallurgical processing steps in order to remove impurities. In addition, recycling saves CO2 equivalent compared to the production of new materials, especially regarding the recovery of aluminum. Economically, it has been shown that large quantities are required for efficient recovery.