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Current recycling methods for the very popular lithium‐ion batteries (LIBs) focus mainly on recovering valuable metals such as cobalt and nickel for economic reasons. The cell casing components, which are mainly made of aluminum, can make a significant contribution to achieving political recycling targets. Mechanical processes are used to separate the casing components from the overall LIB material stream. The aluminum, copper, steel, and plastic components are then further concentrated into various potential products by, e.g., magnetic separation, eddy current separation, and air classification. Considering the benefits of additional stress to compact the metal parts, the knowledge gained from the individual sorting steps can be combined to form a process flow chart. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among the technologies used for spent lithium-ion battery recycling, the common approaches include mechanical treatment, pyrometallurgical processing and hydrometallurgical processing. These technologies do not stand alone in a complete recycling process but are combined. The constant changes in battery materials and battery design make it a challenge for the existing recycling processes, and the need to design efficient and robust recycling processes for current and future battery materials has become a critical issue today. Therefore, this paper simplifies the current treatment technologies into three recycling routes, namely, the hot pyrometallurgical route, warm mechanical route and cold mechanical route. By using the same feedstock, the three routes are compared based on the recovery rate of the six elements (Al, Cu, C, Li, Co and Ni). The three different recycling routes represent specific application scenarios, each with their own advantages and disadvantages. In the hot pyrometallurgical route, the recovery of Co is over 98%, and the recovery of Ni is over 99%. In the warm mechanical route, the recovery of Li can reach 63%, and the recovery of graphite is 75%. In the cold mechanical route, the recovery of Cu can reach 75%, and the recovery of Al is 87%. As the chemical compositions of battery materials and various doping elements continue to change today, these three recycling routes could be combined in some way to improve the overall recycling efficiency of batteries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]