Battery knowledge · Recycling and end of life
Relithiation
Restoring the lithium a used cathode material has lost, by heating it with a lithium salt in the solid state or in a hot lithium solution, and re-annealing the crystal. It is the core step of direct recycling and works best on a single, known chemistry. [1]
- Also called
- cathode regeneration, hydrothermal relithiation
Example
Recycling and end of life: an example situation
High mass recovery alone does not establish battery-grade purity or refining energy demand.
Read Relithiation alongside Cathode active material in this context. The lithium-containing compound in the positive electrode — NMC, NCA, LFP or LCO powder — that supplies the cell’s cyclable lithium. It is the most expensive material in most cells and sets the nominal voltage and much of the energy density.
See it in the plant
- Separate: in a flotation cell air bubbles carry the hydrophobic graphite up as froth (6378 kg), while the cathode particles sink.
- Wash: the cathode powder is cleaned of electrolyte salts and binder residues.
- Relithiate: heated with 27.5 kg of lithium salt, the particles take back the lithium lost in use and their crystal is repaired.
- Out: 5180 kg of regenerated cathode, without ever dissolving the metals.
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
Technical references
- Recycling lithium-ion batteries from electric vehicles
Gavin Harper et al. · Nature · 2019
Technical reference · Reuse, disassembly and mechanical, hydro-, pyro- and direct recycling routes.
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.