REBLEND: Recovering battery-grade materials from upgraded black mass to enable remanufacturing of automotive battery products in the UK

尽管是英国工业和能源转型战略的基石，但英国汽车锂离子电池（LIB）生产行业面临着两个生存威胁：LIB需要大量的关键原材料，特别是阴极活性材料（CAM）钴，镍和锂（到2035年需要175 kt）。CAM都来自海外，造成了关键的供应安全问题。负责报废（EoL）电池的OEM和LIB制造商 ** 缺乏LIB回收基础设施 **。因此，必须出口的汽车锂离子电池废物 **（到2030年约为660万吨）越来越多，导致英国的价值损失（到2030年价值12亿英镑的CAM）。汽车锂离子电池可以重复使用或回收，以负责任地处理电池废物，并提供电池级材料的来源。然而，商业化的SotA回收工艺效率低下且成本高昂，不能生产出足够质量的原材料用于汽车电池的再利用，并且只能在海外获得。目前，英国电池制造商和收集商正在：（到2030年约12亿英镑）;* 向欧洲/亚洲公司支付处置电池的费用;* 日益依赖不安全的原材料提取和加工供应线。REBLEND旨在为英国开发核心流程和能力，基于汽车电池回收行业，可以从生产废料和EoL汽车和消费电池中回收CAMs，用于汽车电池的再利用。REBLEND将展示三种回收最昂贵的CAMs，钴，镍和锂的工艺：1.结合新颖的分层、磁性、静电和膜分离技术，从切碎的EoL LIB中生产分离的、纯度为89%的阳极黑色物质和纯度为94%的阴极黑色物质（与同类最佳竞争对手的<89%的纯混合黑色物质相比），使电池级CAM的回收成本为6英镑/kg。从生产废料（含镍和钴）中直接回收阴极，无需湿法冶金，可直接用于新电池。3.采用静电和磁力分离技术处理粗碎材料（2- 6 mm），防止致癌粉尘形成，显著降低工人的H&S风险。该项目的关键创新领域包括：* 优化LIB粉碎参数，以减少限制材料回收的不良反应。*使用世界领先的聚合物纳米复合膜技术，实现零工艺废物和提取锂。*优化了创新的静电和磁力分离技术，并（首次）对电极和集电器进行分层，从而能够在中试规模（10公斤批次）上经济高效地回收高纯度的CAM废金属。*阴极回收的直接回收技术。

Despite being a cornerstone of the UK's industrial and energy-transition strategy, the UK automotive **Lithium-Ion Battery** **(LIB)** production industry faces two existential threats:* **LIBs require vast amounts of critical raw materials, especially the Cathode Active Materials (CAMs) cobalt, nickel and lithium** (175kt needed by 2035). CAMs are all sourced from overseas, creating critical security of supply issues.* OEMs and LIB manufacturers who are responsible for end-of-life (EoL) batteries **lack LIB recycling infrastructure**. Consequently, there is a **growing mountain of automotive LIB waste** (~6.6Mt by 2030) that must be exported, resulting in loss of value to the UK (CAMs worth £1.2bn by 2030).Automotive LIBs can be reused or recycled to deal responsibly with battery-waste and provide a source of battery-grade materials. However, commercial, SotA recycling processes are inefficient and costly, do not produce raw materials of sufficient quality for reuse in automotive batteries, and are only available overseas.Currently, UK battery manufacturers and collectors are:* Losing the value of the CAMs (~£1.2bn by 2030);* Paying European/Asian companies to dispose of batteries;* Increasing reliance on insecure primary material extraction and processing supply lines.REBLEND aims to develop the core processes and capabilities for a UK-based automotive battery recycling industry that can recover CAMs from production scrap and EoL automotive and consumer batteries for reuse in automotive batteries.REBLEND will demonstrate three processes for recovering the most expensive CAMs, cobalt, nickel and lithium through:1. Combining novel delamination, magnetic, electrostatic and membrane separation techniques to produce separated and \>89% pure anodic and \>94% pure cathodic black mass from shredded EoL LIBs (compared to <89% pure mixed black mass from best-in-class competitor) enabling battery-grade CAM recovery for £6/kg.2. Direct cathode reclamation from production scrap (containing nickel & cobalt) removing the need for hydro-metallurgy and enabling direct reuse in new cells.3. Processing coarse shredded material (2-6mm) using electrostatic and magnetic separation, preventing carcinogenic dust formation, significantly reducing H&S risks for workers.Key areas of innovation in the project are:* Optimisation of LIB shredding parameters to reduce undesirable reactions that limit recovery of materials.* Use of world-leading polymeric nanocomposite membrane technology to achieve zero process waste and extract lithium.* Optimisation of innovative electrostatic and magnetic separation techniques and (for the first time) delamination of electrode and current-collector to enable cost-effective recovery of high-purity CAM recyclates at pilot-scale (10kg batches).* Direct recycling techniques for cathode reclamation.