Development of direct recycling processes (BATT4EU Partnership)

Expected Outcome

Proposals are expected to contribute to all following points:

• Significantly improved recycling efficiency for various battery chemistries, including those with low intrinsic metal values (e.g., LFP, LMFP, sodium-ion).
• Reduced energy consumption of recycling processes compared to conventional recycling methods
• Substantial decreases in Europe's dependency on raw material imports
• Demonstrated economic viability and competitive cost structures for direct recycling technologies, enhancing circular economy practices in European battery cell manufacturing.
• Scalable and automated recycling processes suitable for handling high volumes of gigafactory production scrap, directly reintegrating recycled materials into battery manufacturing processes.

Scope

Proposals under this topic are expected to focus explicitly on the development, validation, and upscaling of direct recycling technologies targeting next-generation and low-value battery chemistries (notably LFP, LMFP, and sodium-ion), as well as efficiently managing gigafactory production scrap.

Projects are expected to address all the following points:

• Direct recycling processes, validated at relevant environment[1] and capable of selectively recovering high-purity active materials from battery electrodes, minimizing processing steps, and preserving material functionality.
• Specific optimization of recycling routes for economically challenging battery chemistries, achieving recovery efficiencies beyond the state-of-the-art
• Innovative approaches for process automation, including intelligent sorting and robotic handling systems, tailored for gigafactory scrap streams, with demonstrated potential to seamlessly integrate into industrial-scale manufacturing facilities.
• Formulation of practical design recommendations based on project findings, to facilitate and optimize direct recycling processes through improved cell design.
• Robust techno-economic analyses demonstrating clear competitive advantages over traditional recycling pathways, complemented by comprehensive life-cycle assessments (LCA) highlighting sustainability benefits in terms of energy savings, CO2 emission reduction, biodiversity and ecosystems impact, and overall resource efficiency.

The Commission initiative for Safe and Sustainable by Design[2] (SSbD) sets a framework for assessing the safety and sustainability of chemicals and materials which should be considered as a reference for project proposals.

Proposals could consider the involvement of the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC)[3] whose contribution could consist of providing added value regarding various aspects of battery circularity and sustainability. For further information on the JRC’s possible contribution to the projects, please, search for additional publicly available information on the JRC’s website[4] (EU Science Hub) on the NCP portal, or request specific information from the JRC (JRC-NCP-Network@ec.europa.eu)

JRC will assure that all the other applicants receive the same information on the JRC’s possible contribution to the project (e.g., via the topic-specific FAQs under the Funding and Tenders Portal).

This topic implements the co-programmed European Partnership on Batteries (Batt4EU). As such, projects resulting from this topic will be expected to report on the results to the European Partnership on Batteries (Batt4EU) in support of the monitoring of its KPIs.

Activities are expected to achieve TRL 5 by the end of the project - see General Annex B. Activities may start at any TRL.

[1] In line with TRL 5, see General Annex B.

[2] https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/research-area/industrial-research-and-innovation/key-enabling-technologies/chemicals-and-advanced-materials_en

[3] https://joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/laboratories-z/battery-energy-storage-testing_en

[4] JRC NCP | Horizon Europe NCP Portal