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LithoRec II

Recycling of Lithium-Ion Batteries
As a continuation to Project LithoRec, Project LithoRec II further researches the aforementioned sustainable recycling process for lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicle applications. In contrast to existing recycling processes, the main goal of the LithoRec Process is to achieve a high recycling yield and to efficiently recover all battery materials at battery grade quality. Thus, in addition to the copper, cobalt and nickel recycling, LithoRec also focuses on the recycling of Lithium and electrolyte components.
The project spams the entire recycling process starting from the discharging and disassembly stages, and following through with mechanical, chemical and thermal processing (e.g. crushing, grinding, classification, sorting, and extraction) used to separate the battery into recyclable fractions. The project’s process chain will be realized in a pilot plant with a recycling capacity of 100 tons of battery cells per year.
At our pilot plant, the most valuable battery components, those which contain the battery active materials, will be hydro-metallurgically processed into pre-products of new battery materials. Currently, the next step in the project is the production of new battery active materials and their characterization in battery test cells. In addition, ecological and economical balances of the whole process are determined.
The companies of the LithoRec II consortium are: Rockwood Lithium, Audi, Bosch Rexroth, Electrocycling, H.C. Starck, Hosokawa Alpine, I+ME Actia, KUKA Roboter, Lion Engineering, Solvay Fluor and Volkswagen. Research partners include the Institute for Particle Technology (iPAT), the Institute of Machine Tools and Production Technology (IWF), the Institute of High Voltage Technology and Electric Power Systems (elenia), the Institute for Chemical and Thermal Process Engineering (ICTV), the Institute of Automotive Management and Industrial Production (AIP) (all TU Braunschweig), as well as the MEET battery research centre at Münster University. LithoRec II is coordinated by Rockwood Lithium, while Prof. Dr.-Ing. Arno Kwade (Head of the iPAT) is the scientific director.

Publications:
C. Hanisch, W. Haselrieder, A. Kwade, Recycling von Lithium-Ionen-Akkus 2014 in elektroniknet.de paper