Ecologically Friendly Recycling of Lithium-Ion Batteries - The LithoRec-Process

Nowadays recycling processes for lithium-ion batteries focus on the recovery of nickel and cobalt. These processes are mainly pyro-metallurgical and as such energy and cost intensive. The project LithoRec, sponsored by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB), aims at a realization of a new ecological recycling process tracing mechanical process-steps and considering recycling of lithium. This work presents the main challenges of the recycling of battery systems of electric and hybrid electric vehicles and the developed process chain, as well as the influence of a second crushing step on the yield and purity of the separated black mass containing the aged active materials.