Recycling strategies for electric vehicles Lithium-ion batteries: focus on crystallization processes and automation opportunities

Massive transition towards electric vehicles (EV) will pose new challenges in raw material availability. The European Union approved a new regulation to encourage battery circular economy and secure battery raw materials in the EU territory. Developing EV battery recycling processes ensures sustainable material recovery and mitigates environmental impacts of the increasing demand for lithium-ion batteries. This thesis underscores the importance of advancing battery recycling practices to support the transition towards sustainable mobility. The study explores key aspects of recycling strategies, focusing on Europe's market dynamics, the new EU Battery Regulation and its impact, recycling processes that are developing at industrial level and automation opportunities. An overview of Li-ion battery principles is provided in the first chapter together with an analysis of the battery recycling market volume estimation, with the aim to underline the importance of developing effective processes since the amount of end-of-life batteries will explode in the coming years. A mapping of the recycling sites in Europe shows the current situation: major players, coming facilities and their capacities are classified. Process optimization, logistic management, collaboration and automated packs disassembly have been identified as the main challenges that the recycling industry has to face. The second chapter delves into recycling processes, offering insights into various methodologies employed in battery recycling in particular for nickel-cobalt-manganese (NCM) chemistry. It has been underlined the process design variability between recyclers since the major players are proposing their own solution. Therefore, standard block flow diagrams are given to summarize the main steps based on the most promising technologies coming on large industrial scale. Pre-treatment strategies are compared, assessing the importance of being efficient: this first treatment is, indeed, crucial to obtain products with high purity. Pyro-Hydrometallurgical and Mechanical-Hydrometallurgical are the processes which recycling players are current developing and their advantages and limitation are detailed. Hydrometallurgy steps are the core of the valuable material recovery, which can be regained in different forms, the most interesting, from a commercial point of view, are the products obtained involving two different types of crystallization: co-precipitation of the precursor cathode active material and solvent extraction of each of the metals that allows to obtain them as sulphate salts through evaporative crystallization. A comparative analysis of coprecipitation and solvent extraction techniques is presented in the third chapter through two case studies: both processes are deeply described by evaluating the strengths and weaknesses to understand what each process excels at, studying which could be the most preferred one. In conclusion, development and future looking statement of both are given. The last chapter explores automation opportunities in battery recycling, recognizing the potential benefits for productivity, safety, and sustainability. State of art of automation is analyzed to identify its advantages, with the focus on the disassembly of EV batteries. It can be stated that automation technology can optimize recycling plant for efficiency, reduce costs and improve recycled materials quality.