In this solely mechanical process, the coating is effectively separated from the current collector foil and separated. The recovered coating can be used directly in battery production, more precisely in the mixing process of electrode production, without any further chemical treatment steps.
Till Bußmann, CTO Duesenfeld GmbH: “This is an important announcement in terms of the circularity of cathode active material. The material can be reused directly without a large energy and chemical input and thus with a low CO2 footprint.“
In a pilot project, a recycling rate of over 90% was achieved for an industrial NMC cathode scrap with extremely low aluminium impurities. In subsequent industry-standard cell tests (C-rate test and long-term cyclisation), cells with 26% recycled content were certified as having a performance comparable to that of reference cells. The specific discharge capacity of the cells with 26 % recycled content reached 162 mAh g-1 compared to 165 mAh g-1 for the reference cells with 100 % primary material content. Similarly, the capacity retention of the cells with 26 % recycled content after 500 cycles is 68 %, which is on a par with the reference cells (67 %).
