Battery knowledge · Recycling and end of life
Overall recovery
The share of an element in the feed that ends up in the final product after every step of a recycling route, which is the product of the individual step recoveries. Several steps at 95 to 98 % each can bring a route below 90 %.
- Also called
- chain recovery, route recovery
Example
A route recovers the product of its steps
R = 0.920 × 0.980 × 0.990 × 0.980 = 0.875, 2.5 points under the 90 % the EU asks for cobalt, nickel and copper by the end of 2027. With the other factors fixed, the black-mass yield reaches that row from 0.947.
Each factor is held fixed and independent of the others, and metal that is not lost is counted as product. Real plants trade the factors off, and product purity is not modelled. The defaults are the study’s cited process figures for nickel and cobalt.
Explore the graph
Each unit passes on a share of what reaches it; the recovery through the route is their product.
R = 0.920 × 0.980 × 0.990 × 0.980 = 0.875, 2.5 points under the 90 % the EU asks for cobalt, nickel and copper by the end of 2027. With the other factors fixed, the black-mass yield reaches that row from 0.947.
R = y_black mass × η_leach × (1 − c_cake) × r_extraction
Illustrative model. Each factor is held fixed and independent of the others, and metal that is not lost is counted as product. Real plants trade the factors off, and product purity is not modelled. The defaults are the study’s cited process figures for nickel and cobalt.
Use in Lemonergy
Distinguish recovered material from a qualified product.
This is a reference concept. No executable Lemonergy block has been verified for this term.
References & further reading
Further reading on this topic
These sources provide broader context; they are not presented as citations for every statement in this entry.
- Lithium-Ion Battery Recycling
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Topic background · Battery construction, recycling routes and U.S. waste-management context.
- Recycling lithium-ion batteries from electric vehicles
Gavin Harper et al. · Nature · 2019
Topic background · Reuse, disassembly and mechanical, hydro-, pyro- and direct recycling routes.