With the explosive growth of new energy vehicles and energy storage industry, the amount of
lithium battery waste is increasing by 30% per year. Traditional landfill or simple dismantling
not only causes waste of strategic resources such as cobalt, nickel and lithium, but also
environmental risks such as electrolyte leakage and heavy metal pollution. Building a
standardized and scaled lithium battery recycling system has become a core issue for
the sustainable development of new energy industry chain. In this paper, we analyze the
key technologies of the whole process of lithium battery recycling, and provide technical
route reference for industrial upgrading.
Pre-processing: safe dismantling and accurate sorting
The primary challenge of lithium battery recycling lies in the safe handling of electrically
charged cores. The automated pre-processing system realizes safe operation through a
triple protection mechanism:
Intelligent Discharge System
Adopting sodium chloride solution submerged discharge method, the voltage of the battery
core is reduced to below 0.5V within 72 hours, and the discharge efficiency is increased by 40%
compared with the traditional resistance discharge.
Inert gas protection disassembly
Module disassembly is carried out in a nitrogen environment, with real-time monitoring
of oxygen concentration (≤1%) to prevent lithium metal from contacting air and
triggering combustion
Multi-stage sorting technology
Through the combination of X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF) and near infrared
(NIR), the identification and sorting of six types of batteries, including lithium iron
phosphate and lithium ternary, is completed within 5 seconds, with an accuracy
rate of 98%.
Comparison of Core Recycling Processes
Wet metallurgy technology breakthrough
Leaching optimization: H2SO4+H2O2 hydrogen peroxide system, cobalt, nickel leaching
rate increased to 99.2%, lithium recovery rate exceeded 92%.
Extraction and purification: new type of tributyl phosphate (TBP) extractant realizes
cobalt-nickel separation coefficient up to 3000:1, and the purity reaches the standard
of battery grade (≥99.95%).
Wastewater closed loop: membrane separation technology to recover fluorine and
phosphorus elements in leach solution, wastewater reuse rate of more than 85%.
Pyrometallurgy upgrading program
Oxygen-enriched melting: under the high temperature of 1350℃, copper and
aluminum collector form ice-copper phase, and the metal recovery rate is increased to 96%.
Flue gas treatment: equipped with rapid cooling tower + activated carbon adsorption
system, dioxin emission concentration <0.1ng TEQ/Nm³.
Slag utilization: slag is made into permeable bricks after modified treatment, and the
comprehensive utilization rate of solid waste reaches 100%.
Innovative application of physical method
Low-temperature crushing: Crush the electric core under the environment of -40℃ liquid
nitrogen to avoid the volatilization of electrolyte, and recover the plastic diaphragm completely.
Eddy current sorting: Sorting aluminum foil fragments from black powder, metal impurity
content reduced to less than 0.3%.
Particle size grading: obtain different particle size graphite (D50=15μm/45μm) through
airflow sorting to meet the regeneration demand of negative electrode materials.
Key material regeneration technology
Positive electrode material repair
After regeneration of ternary materials by acid leaching-co-precipitation-sintering,
the capacity retention rate of the first discharge is ≥97% (2.8-4.3V).
Lithium iron phosphate regenerated by lithium solid-phase replenishment method,
capacity decay <10% for 2000 cycles of 0.5C
Graphite regeneration process
High-temperature purification (2800℃) reduces graphite ash from 12% to 0.5%,
and increases the vibration density to 1.0g/cm³.
Surface coating modification technology to repair SEI membrane damage,
Coulombic efficiency restored to 99.6%.
Electrolyte recycling
Recovery of lithium hexafluorophosphate by supercritical CO2 extraction
technology, with purity of 99.9%.
Carbonate solvent is dehydrated by molecular sieve and directly reused for
new electrolyte preparation.
Analysis of environmental and economic benefits
Environmental benefits
Each ton of ternary battery recycling reduces CO2 emission by 8.2 tons, which is
equivalent to 42,000 kilometers of fuel car driving.
The harmless treatment rate of electrolyte is 100%, and the leaching toxicity of
heavy metals is 50% lower than the limit value of GB 5085.3 standard.
Economic Value
The cost of metal recycling is 40% lower than that of mining, and the cycle of obtaining
cobalt resources is shortened from 3 years to 3 months.
Recycled material production cost reduced by 35%, battery-grade lithium carbonate
preparation energy consumption reduced by 60
Operational Indicators
Automated production line with processing capacity of 5 tons/hour, 75% reduction
in manual intervention
Comprehensive recovery rate of precious metals exceeds 95%, generating revenue
of more than 18,000 yuan per ton of waste batteries.
Technology evolution direction
Intelligent dismantling system
Develop flexible dismantling robots based on machine vision, adapting to new core
structures such as 21700 and 4680, with positioning accuracy of ±0.1mm.
Direct regeneration technology breakthrough
Lithium iron phosphate defect repair technology: lithium replenishment through
LiOH hydrothermal, regeneration material performance to the level of new materials
Solid electrolyte recovery: development of low-temperature molten salt method
for separating LLZO and other new electrolyte components.
Low-carbon process innovation
Bioleaching technology: utilizing Thiobacillus ferrooxidans to leach metals, reducing acid
and alkali consumption by 80%.
Photocatalytic decomposition: using TiO2 catalyst to degrade electrolyte, energy consumption
is only 1/5 of traditional process
Driven by the goal of reaching the peak of carbon, the lithium battery recycling industry is
transforming from the rough operation to the direction of high technology content and high
added value. Through the construction of “accurate sorting - efficient extraction - material
regeneration” of the whole chain technology system, not only can realize the recycling of
strategic metal resources, but also effectively control the environmental risks of the new
energy industry. For recycling enterprises, to grasp the window of technological upgrading,
the establishment of technology - equipment - management of the three-dimensional
competitiveness, will become the key to winning the 100 billion market.