RECELL – MODELING AND ANALYSIS FOR RECYCLING

QIANG DAIArgonne National Laboratory

Project ID: bat382

This presentation does not contain any proprietary, confidential, or otherwise restricted information

2021 DOE Vehicle Technologies OfficeAnnual Merit ReviewJune 21-25, 2021

PROJECT OVERVIEW

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Partners§ Argonne National Laboratory§ National Renewable Energy Laboratory§ Oak Ridge National Laboratory§ University of California, San Diego§ Worcester Polytechnic Institute§ Michigan Technological University

Timeline§ Project start: October 2018§ Project end: September 2021§ Percent complete: ~90%

Barriers§ Recycling and Sustainability

– Cost to recycle is currently 5-15% of battery cost

– Material shortage (Li, Co, and Ni)– Varying chemistries result in

variable backend value

Budget

FY19 $4,615k

FY20 $5,150k

FY21 $4,915k

By 2025, reduce the cost of EV battery packs to less than $100/kWhwith technologies that significantly reduce or eliminate the dependency on critical

materials (such as cobalt) and utilize recycled material feedstocks.

RELEVANCE

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DUMMY

§ Lower cost of batteries

§ Enable lower environmental impacts

§ Increase our country’s energy security

RELEVANCE

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Direct recycling minimizes steps back to use

ReCell’s Mission: Decrease the cost of recycling lithium-ion batteries to ensure

future supply of critical materials and decrease

energy usage compared to raw material production

APPROACH

www.ReCellCenter.org

APPROACH

Program does not include battery dismantling, transportation, or 2nd use

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Year 1 – Bench scale testing:Powder-to-Cell

Year 2 – Start to scale up unit operations

Year 3 – Finish scale up and show cell-to-cell recycling

§ Multiple processes investigated to mitigate risk

§ Continual review of new project ideas

§ End projects that are not showing promise in cost and performance

§ These processes can benefit other recycling processes

Typical Direct Recycling Process FlowAPPROACH

LIBRA: LITHIUM-ION BATTERY RESOURCE ASSESSMENT MODEL

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LIBRA is a system-dynamics model that evaluates the macro-economic viability of the battery manufacturing, reuse, and recycling industries across the global supply chain under differing dynamic conditions.

LIBRA ACCOMPLISHMENTS AND PROGRESSLIBRA v1.0 was completed at the end of FY2020. Example LIBRA Supply Chain Insights:

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Recycling 90% of US LIBscan meet a significant

fraction of US demand for battery metals Ni and Co

Recycling consumer electronics can have a big impact on

profitability, leading to more plants being built.

Battery sorting to select for minimum cobalt-content improves recycling profitability and

increases the number of plants constructed. LIBRA helps define sorting requirements.

LIBRA ACCOMPLISHMENTS AND PROGRESS

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• Input-output model projected economic impacts (jobs and GDP) of investing in manufacturing domestic LIB supply chain: extraction/manufacturing/recycling

• Economic impacts include:• direct payments to firms building the

facilities• 2nd order effects from other industries’

increased demand and • higher household disposable income

• Investment amount is sufficient to meet demand for batteries in xEVs and stationary storage (2025-2040)

Data Sources: Input-output tables: OECD’s input-output table database; Worker Earnings: Bureau of Economic Analysis wage; Capital investments: Bloomberg New Energy Finance BattMan v2.0 model, ANL EverBatt model and NREL internal estimates. X-EV demand and Battery Chemistry: BNEF 2020. Long Term Electric Vehicle Outlook 2020. CE Demand: Pillot, C. 2018. “The rechargeable battery market 2017-2025”, Avicenne Energy, The Battery Show, Germany, May 15; Stationary Storage Demand and Battery Chemistry: BNEF 2019. Long Term Energy Storage Outlook.Notes: 45% of all domestic LIBs are recycled starting in 2025, rising to 90% in 2030 and beyond; Domestic recycling and reserves can meet all of xEV/SS Co and Li demands; US Ni reserves are insufficient to meet demand and so investment in Ni/Co mines is not included

Investing $430 billion across the battery supply chain (2025-2040) can increase GDP by more than 50% to almost $675 billion and add an average of 315,000 jobs per year

EverBatt: Techno-economic Assessment and Life Cycle Analysis of Closed-loop Battery Recycling

Available for download at:https://www.anl.gov/egs/everbatt

The project’s goal is to evaluate the cost and environmental impacts of different battery recycling technologies to inform recycling R&D.

Key functions:• Pinpoint process and supply

chain hotspots, and identify opportunities for improvement.

• Identify barriers to commercialization.

• Provide a holistic picture of battery sustainability over the life cycle.

EVERBATT ACCOMPLISHMENTS AND PROGRESS

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Inert shredFeed Submersion Conveyor Crystallizer Dryer

Froth Float Anode

Thermal Binder

Removal

RelithiationCathode Product

Salt

Metal foilAnode

Powder/foilSeparation

Aspirator

Separator

$0.76 $0.17 $0.20 $0.23

$0.63 $0.35

$0.16 $0.36

$0.18 $-

MaterialsLabor

UtilitiesOther direct cost

DepreciationOther fixed costPlant overhead

General expensesProfit

Battery fee

$- $0.50 $1.00

Cell Recycling Cost Breakdown

Preliminary analysis shows that if technologically proven and successfully scaled up, direct recycling will be economically viable.

$5.84

$0.93

$0.05

$0.40

$- $5.00 $10.00

NMC(111)

Copper

Graphite

LiPF6

Cell Recycling Revenue Breakdown

EVERBATT ACCOMPLISHMENTS AND PROGRESS

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$(20.00) $(15.00) $(10.00) $(5.00) $- $5.00 $10.00

Cathode manufacturing scraps

Electrode manufacturing scraps

Rejected cells

Spent cellsCostRevenue

Direct recycling of manufacturing scraps is promising because

• Manufacturing scraps contain more valuable materials by mass.

• Recovered cathode material does not need to be relithiated and thereby saving processing cost.

• Novel processes are under development to recycle additional materials.

SUMMARY AND FUTURE WORK

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§ LIBRA evaluates the macro-economic viability of the battery supply chain– Informs economic investments and research progress to grow the LIB recycling

industry– Identifies potential of recycling to offset mineral imports– Released LIBRA 1.0 and completed preliminary analysis of major factors underpinning

economically viable battery recycling industry

§ EverBatt evaluates cost and environmental impacts of processes– Ensures environmentally-sound, economic processes are developed– Helps down-select processes to minimize scale-up costs – Completed preliminary analysis of material separations processes, conceptual direct

recycling process designs, and manufacturing scraps recycling

§ Both teams will work with Battery Recycling Prize winners to inform their process development

RESPONSE TO REVIEWERS

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Not reviewed last year

Support for this work from the Office of Vehicle Technologies, DOE-EERE, is gratefully acknowledged –

Samm Gillard, Steven Boyd, and David Howell

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Shabbir Ahmed (Argonne)Yaocai Bai (ORNL)Jon Becker (NREL)Ilias Belharouak (ORNL)Ira Bloom (Argonne)Anthony Burrell (NREL)Zheng Chen (UCSD)Andrew Colclasure (NREL)Jaclyn Coyle (NREL)Qiang Dai (Argonne)Sheng Dai (ORNL)Alison Dunlop (Argonne)Jessica Durham (Argonne)Rachid Essehli (ORNL)Kae Fink (NREL)Tinu Folayan (MTU)Linda Gaines (Argonne)

Andy Jansen (Argonne)Sergiy Kalnaus (ORNL)Matt Keyser (NREL)Greg Krumdick (Argonne)Michael LeResche (Argonne)Jianlin Li (ORNL)Albert Lipson (Argonne)Huimin Luo (ORNL)Josh Major (NREL)Margaret Mann (NREL)Tony Montoya (Argonne)Helio Moutinho (NREL)Lei Pan (MTU)Kyusung Park (NREL)Haruka Pinegar (Argonne)Bryant Polzin (Argonne)Kris Pupek (Argonne)

Vicky Putsche (NREL)Shriram Santhanagopalan (NREL)Jeff Spangenberger (Argonne)Venkat Srinivasan (Argonne)Nathaniel Sunderlin (NREL)Steve Trask (Argonne)Jack Vaughey (Argonne)Patrick Walker (NREL)Tao Wang (ORNL)Yan Wang (WPI)Dustin Weigl (NREL)Olumide Winjobi (Argonne)Zhenzhen Yang (Argonne)Jiuling Yu (NREL)Xiaolu Yu (UCSD)Ruiting Zhan (MTU)

COLLABORATION AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

E-Mail: recell@anl.govWebsite: www.recellcenter.org