Abstract
The global use of lithium-ion batteries of all types has been increasing at a rapid pace for many years. In order to achieve the goal of an economical and sustainable battery industry, the recycling and recirculation of materials is a central element on this path. As the achievement of high 95% recovery rates demanded by the European Union for some metals from today’s lithium ion batteries is already very challenging, the question arises of how the process chains and safety of battery recycling as well as the achievement of closed material cycles are affected by the new lithium battery generations, which are supposed to enter the market in the next 5 to 10 years. Based on a survey of the potential development of battery technology in the next years, where a diversification between high-performance and cost-efficient batteries is expected, and today’s knowledge on recycling, the challenges and chances of the new battery generations regarding the development of recycling processes, hazards in battery dismantling and recycling, as well as establishing a circular economy are discussed. It becomes clear that the diversification and new developments demand a proper separation of battery types before recycling, for example by a transnational network of dismantling and sorting locations, and flexible and high sophisticated recycling processes with case-wise higher safety standards than today. Moreover, for the low-cost batteries, recycling of the batteries becomes economically unattractive, so legal stipulations become important. However, in general, it must be still secured that closing the material cycle for all battery types with suitable processes is achieved to secure the supply of raw materials and also to further advance new developments.
Highlights
The goal of economical and sustainable battery cell production remains a key element on the way to establishing electromobility as a green technology of the future [1]
Sustainable process management and development includes the economic recycling and recirculation of materials used in cell production with a simultaneously low energy input, which leads to a reduction of the ecological CO2 footprint in battery cell production [2,3,4,5]
The recycling technologies must be flexible and adaptable to future production technologies and especially materials that are processed in the future with regard to new battery generations [10]
Summary
The goal of economical and sustainable battery cell production remains a key element on the way to establishing electromobility as a green technology of the future [1]. Purities for further usage as battery material, it is to be set that it should be highly flexible in order to achieve the most energy-efficient multi-material recovery possible To reach this goal, mechanical, thermal, and chemical process steps are to be used and combined in different ways. 2. Cost-efficient lithium-ion batteries with liquid electrolyte, graphite anode, and cathode material based mainly on iron and/or manganese and only small amounts of nickel and eventually cobalt. The solid electrolytes can have an oxide, sulfide, or polymer nature, whereby the compositions and properties can be highly variable (Table 2) From these points, it is clear that next-generation technologies will include much fewer critical components, such as cobalt, and new materials such as silicon, or even germanium. In the first step, the three criteria for today’s LIB are briefly presented, and based on this, the potential challenges posed by the introduction of the different cell generations mentioned above are assessed
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