Recharging the future: why battery recycling is key to a circular economy

Achieving climate neutrality is about producing more renewable energy, having smarter electricity grids, and storing it: the importance of batteries is indisputable. One of the main criticisms of batteries is their end-of-life disposal. Not only do they require rare materials such as lithium to be made, but disposing of them poses some concerns. Yet, circularity and recycling efforts are increasing. 

As society electrifies, more batteries will be available for recycling; let’s take the electric vehicle (EV) sector as an example. According to figures published by consultancy Circular Energy Storage, the global volume of EV batteries available for recycling will grow by 343% between 2030 and 2035. 

EU’s push for circularity

As part of its efforts to make Europe the first continent on the planet to reach circularity, the EU is pushing for more ambitious materials use goals. EU regulation mandates increasing the circularity of batteries and aims for higher recycled material content. As part of the Critical Raw Materials Act, by 2030, 25% of the consumption of strategic materials – a list featuring lithium, copper, and nickel, among many others – must come from recycling. Given their composition, this rule puts stringent targets on the battery industry. 

At the same time, the Net Zero Industry Act sets a framework for enhancing the EU’s industry competitiveness in key decarbonization technologies, including battery manufacturing. The act aims to achieve net-zero manufacturing capacity to meet at least 40% of the EU’s annual deployment needs by 2030.

Hydrometallurgy 

At Battery Day 2024, the Dutch battery ecosystem event organized by Battery Competence Cluster, some of the latest developments in battery recycling were presented. Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) professor Lorenzo Botto delved into some of the academic institution's research. The university’s hydrometallurgy lab is exploring chemical processes to recycle batteries. Unlike mechanical recycling, which works by sorting out components and recovering materials separately, chemical recycling leverages chemical reactions to separate elements. 

Hydrometallurgy uses a water-based solution to extract metals from the batteries' black mass—the resulting powder mix after the batteries have been shredded. Step by step, this process allows the separation and recovery of all the minerals in the power. 

“This process can be very effective, yet some challenges limit it. Costs are high, and achieving the best material purity is challenging. Scaling up this technology, which has mainly been performed on a lab scale, is another point that needs to be addressed,” underlined Botto.

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Building the ecosystem

The Green Transport Delta - Electrification (GTD-E) project aims to accelerate towards climate-neutral mobility, promote a circular economy, and strengthen the Dutch manufacturing industry. The initiative brings together several companies and stakeholders in the battery ecosystem. 

A considerable part of the GTD-E project focuses on battery recycling. Susanne van Berkum from the Dutch Institute of Applied Scientific Research (TNO) told the audience more about the work being done within the initiative. A focal point is the assessment of recycling methods, matching hydrometallurgy with pyrometallurgy—a process using high-temperature heat to recover metals. 

According to the analysis, it would be better to focus on hydrometallurgy. This technique has a few key advantages: better lithium recovery, lower energy use, and the concerns about health and environmental impact pyrometallurgy has. 

Design to reuse

Design is critical to simplify materials retrieval at the end of the battery's life cycle. More and more designs are accommodating the necessity to reuse objects once discarded. ”In the past, we didn’t design for recycling,” said Ruud Balkenende, professor of sustainable design engineering at the TU Delft.

In his view, circularity is a tool, not the goal society should aspire to. Instead, the end goals are environmental protection and broader economic prosperity. As a result, design is a tradeoff between technology, user experience, and business perspectives. 

The professor also outlined some ideas for boosting circularity efforts when developing EV batteries. “Aim for a sufficient battery capacity; bigger is not necessarily useful. Think of the role of these batteries in stabilizing the grid and all the other vehicle-to-x use cases. Consider the shift from nickel cobalt manganese (NMC) chemistry to lithium iron phosphate battery (LFP),” he suggested.

While both employ significant lithium, LFP batteries don’t rely on other critical materials like nickel and cobalt. Although this lack of critical materials might make them less appealing for recycling, their longer lifespan and stability make them a good fit for second-life applications such as stationary storage. 

As electrification progresses, scientific research on battery recycling techniques will follow suit, helping recover and reuse battery materials. This would create a more robust battery ecosystem and reduce dependencies on foreign countries.