Battery recycling and life cycle

A closed-loop life cycle

Batteries are collected from production scrap produced by gigafactories/manufacturers

Stage 8

Stage 1

Packaging and transport to the hazardous waste recycling center

Sourcing for precursor cathode active materials (pCAM)

Stage 7

Stage 2

Recovery of cobalt, nickel and lithium as salts

• A battery contains: plastics, solvent, electronic components, modules
• The modules contain cells
• Cells: anodes coated in graphite/cathodes coated in a mixture of oxides that contain strategic metals (cobalt, lithium, nickel, manganese)

Safety processing and dismantling (separation of cathodes, anodes and plastics)

Stage 3

Stage 6

Hydrometallurgical separation

Recovery and grinding of the cells containing the metals

Stage 5

Stage 4

A mechanical separator extracts the recyclable fragments of copper, plastic and aluminium

Processing of anodes and cathodes to recover the “black mass”, a black powder that contains cobalt, nickel and lithium oxides

Closed-loop recycling reduces dependence on critical metals from foreign countries