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)**生产行业面临两个生死存亡的威胁：*LIB需要大量关键原材料，特别是正极活性材料(CAM)钴、镍和锂**(到2035年需要175kt)。凸轮都来自海外，造成了严重的供应安全问题。*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，有**不断增长的汽车锂离子电池废物**必须出口(到2030年约6.6亿吨)，导致对英国的价值损失(到2030年，CAMS价值12亿GB)。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，商业上的SOTA回收流程效率低、成本高，无法生产足够质量的原材料用于汽车电池的再利用，而且只能在海外获得。目前，英国电池制造商和收集者正在：*失去凸轮的价值(到2030年，约12亿GB)；*付钱给欧洲/亚洲公司，让它们处理电池；*日益依赖不安全的原材料提取和加工供应链。REBLEND的目标是为总部位于英国的汽车电池回收行业开发核心工艺和能力，该行业可以从生产废料和EoL汽车和消费电池中回收凸轮，以便在汽车电池中重复使用。REBLEND将通过以下三种工艺展示回收最昂贵的凸轮、钴、镍和锂的过程：1.结合新颖的分层、磁性、静电和膜分离技术，从粉碎的EoL Libs中生产分离的89%纯阳极和94%纯阴极黑色物质(相比之下；89%来自同类最佳竞争对手的纯混合黑色质量)，实现了GB 6/Kg.2的电池级CAM恢复。直接从生产废料(含镍和钴)中回收阴极，消除了湿法冶金的需要，并能够直接在新电池中重复使用。利用静电和磁分离处理粗碎材料(2-6 mm)，防止致癌粉尘的形成，显著降低H&S工人的风险。该项目的关键创新领域是：*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。*优化创新的静电和磁分离技术，以及(首次)电极和集电器的分层，以实现中试规模(10公斤批次)高纯度CAM回收的成本效益。*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.