Direct Battery Recycling and Design for Circularity

The Fraunhofer R&D Center for Electromobility (FZEB) has been working on direct battery recycling and design for circularity since 2016 and has developed a wide range of sustainable, low-energy and highly efficient technologies and processes.
 

The FZEB is involved in numerous national and international projects and is one of the key players in Europe in the field of direct battery recycling. Direct battery recycling is an emerging approach that is in particularly - but not exclusively - interesting for low-cost battery chemistries. It has the decisive advantage that the materials are not “downcycled” into precursors (e.g, in form of metal salts), but will be conserved in their original structure, which can allow the direct re-use of these materials in the fabrication of new batteries.

We provide direct battery recycling solutions for customers from various industries, e. g. battery recyclers, electrode and battery manufacturers, cell users as well as chemical and materials companies.

You can find out more about the various research tasks and battery developments in our project examples and publications.

Significantly improve the recyclability of batteries in order to increase resource efficiency and reduce CO₂ emissions

Project Rewind

The objective of the ReUse project is to improve the circularity and sustainability of the entire low-value LFP battery waste stream - from production scrap to end-of-life LiB.

Project Reuse

This study investigates the impact of water ratio on the direct aqueous recycling of NMC811. Three different ratios of NMC811 to water were examined. The results demonstrate that the water ratio significantly affects the electrochemical performance of NMC811. Capacity fading is observed in all water-exposed samples, with the sample having the lowest water ratio showing less fading compared to the samples processed with higher water ratios. Both samples with higher water ratios exhibit similar performance, suggesting an equilibrium at the NMC811-water interface is established. Characterization of the cathode materials reveals variations in the amount and type of surface species. The pristine sample, not exposed to water, only shows Li₂CO₃ and NiO as surface species, while the water-exposed NMC811 samples exhibit nickel carbonates and hydroxides along with associated water. The poorer performance of samples exposed to higher water ratios is likely due to higher amounts of these species forming on the particle surface. Additionally, lithium, cobalt, and manganese carbonates, as well as lithium hydroxide with associated water, are detected and could further contribute to the poorer performance.

View Article

The NaKlaR project is developing solutions for the remaining challenges that will lead to sustainable sodium-ion-batteries with improved electrochemical performance.

Project NaKlaR

The vision of RESPECT project is to contribute to paving the way for increasing global competitiveness, strategic autonomy, and circularity of the European battery ecosystem by developing innovative green recycling and materials recovery processes, and thus supporting the growing Li-ion battery manufacturing in Europe.

Project Respect

The project RecyLIB aims to establish sustainable, low-energy and highly efficient manufacturing and recycling chains for lithium-ion batteries.

Project RecyLIB

Semi-continuous centrifugation is suggested as promising method to separate battery active materials from aqueous multi-component agglomerate dispersions. This is of special interest for direct recycling of active materials from decommissioned lithium-ion batteries. The separation of lithium iron phosphate (LFP) from carbon black C65 could be achieved with separation efficiencies of 90–100 % for LFP and 40–90 % for C65. The working parameters of the centrifuge, namely volumetric flow rate and rotational speed, were varied within a design of experiments study to find an optimum at 65 mL min⁻¹ and 20,000 rpm, where at least 97 % of the LFP is separated in the centrifuge, while as much C65 as possible is pushed into the centrate. Furthermore, the separation mechanism was discussed by analyzing particle size distributions and the sediment build-up. High rotational speeds and low volumetric flow rates lead to significant radial and axial gradients in terms of carbon content in the sediment. LFP that was extracted from the sediment after centrifugation at the optimum conditions exhibited 98 % of the initial specific capacity.

View Article

With increasing registration numbers of electric vehicles, sustainable production and recycling of traction batteries are gaining in importance - literally. Thanks to coordinated joint research efforts, battery cells should also be able to be produced in Germany and Europe in the future. Against this background, cell production processes must be as environmentally friendly and battery materials must be recovered and reused as efficiently as possible. Only in this way can battery-based electromobility become truly future-proof and sustainable.

Project IDcycLIB

The separation of dissolved valuable substances and pollutants in low concentrations is essential for efficient water treatment and raw material supply. Thus, it is imperative to develop solutions for better separation of heavy metals or drug residues from industrial/clinical wastewater as well as Li concentration for batteries and water desalination for green hydrogen.

Project EWA