The use of lithium‐ion batteries (
LIB
s) has grown since the market entry of portable power tools and consumer electronic devices. Soon, the need for
LIB
will rise, when they are used in hybrid and full electric vehicles as well as in energy storage systems to enable the use of renewable energies. To prevent a future shortage of cobalt, nickel, and lithium and to enable a sustainable life cycle of these technologies, new recycling processes for
LIBs
are needed. These new processes have to regain not only cobalt, nickel, copper, and aluminum from spent battery cells but also a significant share of lithium. Therefore, this article approaches unit operations and their combination to set up for efficient
LIB
recycling processes, especially considering the task to recover high rates of valuable materials with regard to involved safety issues. Further discussed unit operations are
Deactivation/discharging of the battery
Disassembly of battery systems (specifically for
EV‐battery systems
)
Mechanical processes (including inert crushing, sorting, and sieving processes and a special case: thermomechanical separation)
Hydrometallurgical processes
Pyrometallurgical processes
Specific dangers are associated with
LIB
recycling processes: electrical dangers, chemical dangers, burning reactions, and potential interactions of the single dangers. Furthermore, industrial process chains, already in use, as well as research approaches are summarized. The processes of the companies
Retriev Technologies
,
Recupyl
,
Batrec
,
Inmetco
,
Xstrata
,
Umicore
,
Accurec
,
AEA Technology
,
OnTo T
echnology, and
Lion Engineering
are discussed and illustrated briefly. A closer look is given to some results of the research project
LithoRec
.