Recycling of Lithium‐Ion Batteries—Current State of the Art, Circular Economy, and Next Generation Recycling

Abstract

Being successfully introduced into the market only 30 years ago, lithium‐ion batteries have become state‐of‐the‐art power sources for portable electronic devices and the most promising candidate for energy storage in stationary or electric vehicle applications. This widespread use in a multitude of industrial and private applications leads to the need for recycling and reutilization of their constituent components. Improving the “recycling technology” of lithium ion batteries is a continuous effort and recycling is far from maturity today. The complexity of lithium ion batteries with varying active and inactive material chemistries interferes with the desire to establish one robust recycling procedure for all kinds of lithium ion batteries. Therefore, the current state of the art needs to be analyzed, improved, and adapted for the coming cell chemistries and components. This paper provides an overview of regulations and new battery directive demands. It covers current practices in material collection, sorting, transportation, handling, and recycling. Future generations of batteries will further increase the diversity of cell chemistry and components. Therefore, this paper presents predictions related to the challenges of future battery recycling with regard to battery materials and chemical composition, and discusses future approaches to battery recycling.

A Roadmap for Transforming Research to Invent the Batteries of the Future Designed within the European Large Scale Research Initiative BATTERY 2030+

“…To challenge the existing limitations, a disruptive approach is to inject smart embedded sensing technologies and functionalities into the battery cell, capable of performing spatial and time‐resolved monitoring ( Figure 6 ), so that battery will no longer simply be a black box. [ 11 ]…”

“…New materials, interfaces/interphases, and cell architectures call for new recycling concepts, [ 11 ] such as reconditioning or reusing electrodes. Industrial participation will be brought on board early.…”

“…To challenge the existing limitations, a disruptive approach is to inject smart embedded sensing technologies and functionalities into the battery cell, capable of performing spatial and time-resolved monitoring (Figure 6), so that battery will no longer simply be a black box. [11] This vision needs to be addressed at both component and full system levels and involves the possible integration and development of various sensing technologies to transmit information in and out of the cells. For that, sensors that can measure multiple parameters (such as temperature (T), pressure (P), strain (ε), electrolyte composition, electrode breathing (ΔV), and heat flow) at various locations within a cell (i.e., spatially resolved monitoring) are especially important.…”

“…This paper summarizes the roadmap developed by the always BATTERY 2030+ consortium and is complemented by a number of articles in this special issue, including also one paper regarding the state‐of‐the‐art. [ 2–11 ]…”

“…This paper summarizes the roadmap developed by the always BATTERY 2030+ consortium and is complemented by a number of articles in this special issue, including also one paper regarding the state-of-the-art. [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] The market for high-energy-density rechargeable batteries is currently dominated by the lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery (LIB), which performs well in most applications and has decreased dramatically in cost. However, current generation LIBs are approaching their performance limits.…”