The Catalyst Review September 2019 - 8

SPECIAL FEATURE
came from electronic items. By 2025, the amount of LIB sold will have more than
quadrupled and the scrap amounts will have risen to 720,000 tons. LIB recycling
rates are already higher than one might think - around 58%, but the collection
infrastructure and recycling capacity needs to grow on a global basis as the EV car
park spreads out from Asia to cover more world regions (CES 2019). There has been
some landfilling of batteries outside of China where there are fewer established
battery recycling operations and this is an unnecessary and unsustainable practice
which battery producers and recyclers need to work to eliminate. This will also
serve to create profits through recycling services while enhancing security of supply.
The recycling rate will drop back to 55% by 2025, as a factor of the lag in recycling
capacity needed for the increase in recycling feed entering the market (Melin 2019).
There are several different battery chemistries already deployed and over the next
five years, a sharp increase in end-of-life (EOL) batteries (mainly non-automotive)
based on Lithium-Iron-Phosphate (LFP) battery chemistry is expected and a
concurrent contraction in the proportion of lithium-cobalt-oxide (LCO) units
(Melin 2019). There is some desire at the producer end to move away from cobalt
formulations. For instance, Samsung has announced that it is introducing graphene
batteries into its mobile phones as early as 2020 because they charge in a fraction
of the time (Villas-Boas 2019). These effects could cause a decrease in both lithium
and cobalt inclusion in batteries for electronics, especially if other phone and laptop
manufacturers follow suit.
This will be offset, however, by the increase in the amount of
LIB scrap from the automotive sector, where passenger car
batteries can weigh up to 500 kg each and LDV up to 1 ton. In
these applications nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) is a popular
choice and it is expected to grow in share from the 26% seen
in 2016 to 41% by 2025 (Pilot 2017). Most NMC currently is
"622" (60% Ni:20%Mn:20%Co). There is a desire to move to
NMC 811 but this is being hampered by technical difficulties
based on the very high nickel content and so a reasonable
level of cobalt can be expected to stay in EV batteries for some
time to come. The total volume of batteries deployed will also
continue to rise. Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) made
its most bullish prediction yet for 2040, with EV reaching 57%
in passenger cars and buses (>80%) as well as 30% in medium
commercial vehicles (MCV) and 20% in heavy commercial
vehicles (HCV) (Green Car Congress 2019).

Figure 2. Profile of LIB Recycling and Critical Material
Recovery in 2018 and 2025.

Source: Enabled Future Limited, adapted from Circular
Energy Storage (CES) data, 2018

Table 3. Global Companies Active in Recycling Critical Materials from Lithium-Ion
Batteries.

Source: Enabled Future Limited

Many companies already have established recycling operations for EV batteries, mainly in Asia where 90% of LIB recycling takes
place. China has a system for becoming an approved battery supplier which involves being placed on the Chinese recycler's whitelist.
Around ten companies have achieved this status. Table 3 lists the companies who are currently active in the battery recycling space.

Umicore Battery Recycling Process
The battery recyclers each have their own technology variants. Taking Umicore as an example, the company offers a combined
pyrometallurgical and hydrometallurgical process which covers a range of battery types and sizes including LIB and nickel metal
hydride (NiMH). Depending on the size of the battery, it may be fed directly into the furnace, or it may need partial dismantling.
Batteries up to 20 kg as shown in Figure 3, do not generally need to be dismantled. Batteries from vehicles (HEV or BEV), are
dismantled into three fractions: the pack material (cable, steel and plastics), the electronic circuit boards, and the battery modules
themselves. The pack material is sent to local recyclers for treatment and the electronics are routed to Umicore's electronics
recycling stream at Hoboken. The battery modules go into the pyrometallurgical (smelting stage) which converts them into a further
three fractions.
The smelting step at the 7,000 metric ton plant at Hoboken, Belgium employs Umicore's Ultra-High Temperature (UHT)
pyrometallurgical route first introduced in 2011. It utilizes a sub-merged air-fed plasma torch generating temperatures of >3000°C
and injects plasma gas into the melt. Oxygen gas is separately fed into the melt via a short tube and this allows higher oxygen partial
pressures to be reached when needed, for example, for aluminium-containing feeds. Gas pressures of 1 x 10-12 to 10-14 are employed
8

The Catalyst Review

September 2019

The Catalyst Review September 2019

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