Beyond state-of-the-art battery recycling by increasing the selectivity and specificity of efficient pre-processing technologies

Europe aims to reach climate neutrality and a circular economy by 2050. Current practices to recycle batteries are not designed for the full valorisation of the battery materials and, therefore, are not coherent with the European ambitions. To design the vertical battery recycling process compatible with the requirements of circular economy, BeyondBattRec aims at integrating emerging technological and digital tools to enhance the battery recycling rate. The project introduces innovative principles and practices at the component level and rationally integrates the developed components to recover valuable materials with a constant focus on carbon footprint according to the request in Annex II of the new EU Directive (EU) 2019/1020. To achieve its objective, BeyondBattRec puts together a multidisciplinary 13-partner consortium from 7 European member states, consisting of industries, academia, and research & technology organizations. The project targets battery recyclers, manufacturers and technology providers as the end users due to their importance in realizing the objectives of Batt4EU in transforming European battery industry to make it circular and achieve overall climate neutrality at EU level by 2050, while enhancing their global competitiveness. Thanks to innovative steps beyond state of art, BeyondBattRec will allow to comply also with other 2 Annexes of the above Directive (Annex X for management of materials subject to risk of supply for Europe and Annex XII related to minimum recovery rate for said risky and strategic metals and requesting the following recovery rate at the horizon of 2031: (a) 95 % for cobalt; (b) 95 % for Cooper; (c) 80 % for lithium;(d) 95 % for nickel.BeyondBattRec builds on the success of former initiatives and projects which have delivered technological, methodological, patents and largely Europe Dissemination under join venture and licenses. Thanks to those community assets, BeyondBattRec will convincingly and coherently leverage and advance to achieve its objectives.