What happens to used lithium-ion batteries from electric cars?

Battery recycling: from dismantling to melting down

The ADAC calculates that a battery weighing around 400 kilograms with a capacity of 50 kWh contains around 6 kg of lithium, 10 kg of manganese, 11 kg of cobalt, 32 kg of nickel and 100 kg of graphite. A wide variety of methods are used to recycle the raw materials. All of them aim to achieve the highest possible recycling rate. "A recycling process is efficient if it recovers at least 90 per cent of the target elements, such as graphite, lithium or cobalt," recycling expert Prof. Bernd Friedrich from RWTH Aachen University told the Automobile Club.

As a rule, recycling processes usually begin with manually dismantling the lithium-ion battery system. This is followed by other steps, such as sorting, shredding and thermal melting. According to the current state of the art, the majority of materials can be recycled today. However, some of the process steps still consume too much energy and are very expensive.

Numerous pilot plants have made it their mission to make the processes more efficient. The Volkswagen Group, for example, has set itself an ambitious long-term goal: the Wolfsburg company wants to recycle 97 percent of all raw materials. A pilot plant in Salzgitter aims to get this figure to 72 per cent from 2022.