BASF Battery Recycling Presentation - How does hydrometallurgical battery recycling work?
Summary
TLDRThis presentation focuses on the recycling of electric vehicle batteries, emphasizing the need for an efficient and circular economy to reclaim valuable metals like nickel, cobalt, and lithium. BASF's innovative hydrometallurgical process aims to recover battery-grade lithium hydroxide directly, improving recycling efficiency while reducing waste. The presenter highlights the challenges and innovations involved, such as the purification of contaminants like fluoride. With pilot trials concluded and plans for a pilot plant in 2022, BASF aims to advance battery recycling technology, addressing both ecological and economic concerns in the growing electric vehicle market.
Takeaways
- 🔋 Electric vehicles are crucial for a climate-neutral society, and their batteries contain valuable materials like nickel, cobalt, manganese, and lithium.
- ♻️ By 2030, 1.6 million tons of end-of-life electric vehicle batteries are expected, necessitating efficient recycling solutions.
- 🔧 Battery recycling involves disassembling, shredding, and sorting batteries to extract metals like copper, aluminum, and the key active materials in the 'black mass.'
- ⚫ 'Black mass' contains valuable metals like graphite, nickel, cobalt, and lithium, but also has contaminants, requiring further chemical processing.
- 🔥 Pyrometallurgy heats the black mass to 1500°C, melting valuable metals, but lithium ends up in the slag, making it inefficient for lithium recovery.
- 💧 Hydrometallurgy uses sulfuric acid at moderate temperatures to extract nickel, cobalt, copper, and lithium, but is more complex and costly.
- 🧪 BASF's recycling process focuses on hydrometallurgy and aims to selectively extract high-quality battery-grade lithium hydroxide.
- 🌱 BASF's lithium extraction process minimizes carbon footprint and sodium sulfate byproducts, enhancing sustainability.
- 🔍 Removing fluoride and other contaminants from lithium hydroxide is critical for maintaining battery performance and longevity.
- 🏗️ BASF plans to build a pilot plant for this process by 2022 in Schweitzer, Europe, aiming to scale up the technology for global battery recycling.
Q & A
What is the significance of battery recycling in the context of electromobility?
-Battery recycling is crucial for electromobility as it contributes to a circular economy and helps in achieving a climate-neutral society by ensuring the efficient reuse of valuable materials from electric vehicle batteries.
What are the key components of an electric vehicle battery?
-The key components of an electric vehicle battery include two electrodes, an anode made of graphite and a cathode made with materials such as nickel, cobalt, manganese, and lithium, along with a separator to prevent short circuits and an electrolyte for charge exchange.
By what year is it predicted that 1.6 million tons of end-of-life batteries will be generated?
-According to a Bloomberg study, by 2030, it is expected that 1.6 million tons of end-of-life batteries will be generated.
What is the economic importance of recycling battery packs?
-Battery packs contain valuable metals like lithium, nickel, cobalt, and about 160,000 tons of these metals, which is approximately 10 percent of the overall waste amount, making their recycling economically significant.
What is the 'black mass' mentioned in the script?
-The 'black mass' is the product of mechanical processing of used batteries, which contains the active materials of the battery, including carbon or graphite from the anode and valuable materials from the cathode, along with various contaminations.
What are the two primary methods for processing the 'black mass' from used batteries?
-The two primary methods for processing the 'black mass' are pyrometallurgy, which involves heating the material to high temperatures in a smelter, and hydrometallurgy, which takes place at moderate temperatures in an aqueous sulfuric acid solution.
Why is lithium not considered a precious metal in the context of pyrometallurgy?
-Lithium is not considered a precious metal in pyrometallurgy because it ends up in the slag, which is typically sold to the construction industry, making its recovery less economically viable compared to other metals like nickel and cobalt.
What is BASF's approach to improving lithium yield and reducing the carbon footprint in battery recycling?
-BASF's approach involves a hydrometallurgical process that directly extracts lithium hydroxide from the black mass, avoiding the formation of sodium sulfate and additional steps required to convert lithium carbonate into lithium hydroxide, thus reducing the carbon footprint.
What challenges does BASF face in purifying lithium hydroxide to battery-grade quality?
-BASF faces challenges in removing contaminants to a two-digit ppm level from lithium hydroxide to ensure battery quality and performance. Fluoride, in particular, is challenging to remove beyond a certain point as it becomes part of the crystal structure of lithium hydroxide.
What is the current status of BASF's pilot plant for battery recycling, and when is it planned to start?
-As of the presentation, BASF is preparing the pilot plant, which is planned to be commissioned in 2022. The pilot plant will be used to demonstrate the entire process and determine the parameters needed for large-scale production.
How does BASF plan to scale up its battery recycling process from pilot trials to global implementation?
-BASF plans to scale up its battery recycling process by first focusing on Europe, using the pilot plant to demonstrate the process and gather data for large-scale production. The goal is to eventually make battery recycling a global reality.
Outlines
🔋 Overview of Battery Materials and Recycling Challenge
The speaker introduces the importance of battery recycling in the context of the growing demand for electric vehicles. With electric mobility being crucial for a climate-neutral society, the focus is on the valuable and critical materials in batteries, including nickel, cobalt, manganese, and lithium. By 2030, a significant number of end-of-life batteries will require recycling, highlighting the need to develop economically and ecologically viable processes now. The speaker emphasizes the importance of taking proactive steps rather than waiting until the recycling demand peaks.
♻️ Black Mass and Recycling Methods
The speaker describes the concept of black mass, the material left after used batteries are disassembled and shredded. It contains valuable materials like nickel, cobalt, and lithium but is contaminated with other metals and elements like fluorine. Two primary methods for processing black mass are introduced: pyrometallurgy, which uses smelting to extract metals but results in lithium loss, and hydrometallurgy, which allows for the extraction of all key materials, including lithium, but requires multiple steps and significant investment.
🔧 Hydrometallurgy Process for Efficient Battery Recycling
Hydrometallurgy, an existing and widely used process for extracting metals such as cobalt and nickel from mines, is adapted to battery recycling. However, lithium presents new challenges as it is not typically found near cobalt and nickel sources. The process focuses on extracting lithium as lithium hydroxide directly from the black mass, which avoids byproduct formation and extra steps required in traditional processes. This innovative approach aims to reduce costs and improve efficiency in producing materials for modern electric vehicle batteries.
🧪 Challenges and Innovations in Lithium Hydroxide Extraction
The speaker highlights the importance of producing battery-grade lithium hydroxide by removing contaminants like fluoride, which is difficult to eliminate through crystallization. BASF leverages its extensive portfolio of purification technologies, including ion exchange and absorption, to tackle these challenges. The speaker shares that BASF has successfully passed proof of concept in the lab and is now moving toward scaling the process for industrial use.
🏭 Pilot Plant for Battery Recycling Innovation
A question is raised about the timeline for the BASF pilot plant dedicated to battery recycling. The speaker confirms that the plant is scheduled to be commissioned in 2022, with detailed planning and construction currently underway. The plant is to be built in Schweitzer, and its goal is to demonstrate the recycling process in its entirety and prepare for large-scale production.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Battery Recycling
💡Electromobility
💡Black Mass
💡Hydrometallurgy
💡Pyrometallurgy
💡Circular Economy
💡Nickel, Cobalt, and Lithium
💡End-of-Life Batteries
💡Lithium Hydroxide
💡Carbon Footprint
Highlights
The importance of battery recycling in achieving a circular economy for electric vehicles.
Electric vehicles rely heavily on batteries with key components like graphite for the anode, and nickel, cobalt, manganese, and lithium for the cathode.
By 2030, 1.6 million tons of end-of-life batteries are expected, creating an urgent need for efficient recycling processes.
End-of-life batteries will need to be recycled both economically and ecologically, as they contain valuable materials like lithium, nickel, and cobalt.
Off-spec materials from battery production will also increase significantly by 2025, adding pressure on the recycling industry.
The black mass is the result of mechanical battery processing, containing valuable materials like carbon, nickel, cobalt, and lithium.
Two recycling methods for black mass: pyrometallurgy and hydrometallurgy. Pyrometallurgy is energy-intensive, while hydrometallurgy allows recycling of all key metals, including lithium.
Hydrometallurgy, though effective, requires multiple steps and is costly. Innovation is needed to improve lithium recovery and minimize waste.
BASF’s recycling process focuses on hydrometallurgy and enables high-efficiency separation of key materials like nickel, cobalt, and lithium.
A major innovation by BASF: direct extraction of lithium hydroxide from the black mass, avoiding inefficient intermediate steps.
This direct lithium hydroxide extraction process reduces the carbon footprint and prevents the formation of unnecessary byproducts like sodium sulfate.
The process also enables better integration into traditional metal refineries, streamlining the recycling chain.
A significant challenge is reducing fluoride contamination during lithium hydroxide crystallization, as it affects battery performance.
BASF uses advanced purification techniques to achieve battery-grade lithium hydroxide, ensuring the quality of next-generation batteries.
BASF plans to build a pilot plant for this process, with construction starting in 2021 and operations beginning in 2022.
Transcripts
thank you martin so
so now it's time to move on to our next
um presentation so feel dank for the
fraga
thank you very much for the question i
would like to give the floor to ms
shirley and she's going to talk about
this cycle and how it is going to be
closed with battery materials
well miss schwab thank you very much for
the friendly introduction
dear people who are interested in
science
the home there and your monitors and
screens i'm really looking forward to
being part
of this very exciting format and talk
about battery recycling today
the electro mobility is one of the key
technologies on our way
towards a climate neutral society
the number of electric vehicles is
growing
day by day a key element of the electric
car
is its battery and the key components of
the battery
are two electrodes an anode and a
cathode
the anode is made up of graphite where
the cathode
should come with basf battery materials
including nickel cobalt manganese
and lithium which are both valuable
and critical the battery
is assembled by placing a separator
between the anode and the cathode
which prevents a short circuit from
happening
and the charge exchange
is intruded by an electrolyte which
contains a solvent unfortunately
electric vehicles and their batteries
are not forever
at the end of their life they come back
bloomberg has found out in a study that
by 2030
1.6 million tons of end-of-life
batteries are to be expected
and these end of life batteries
will have to be recycled in
a practical way
this must make sense from an economic as
well an ecological
standpoint economical standpoint means
you need the right cycles in place
these battery packs contain 160 000
tons of those valuable metals lithium
nickel cobalt and this is about
10 percent of the overall waste amount
so now is the time to develop the right
processes
as long as there aren't all that many
battery cells
in need of recycling so we shouldn't sit
back and take our time up until 2030
because
add to the end-of-life battery
the off-spec materials from battery
production
these are materials that are produced
while
the production of batteries is ramped up
and
this is why we expect significant
quantities of such off spec materials by
2025
so it's about time for industry to close
this loop
at the beginning of the cycle we have
the material from the mines
nickel cobalt manganese and lithium
a chemical transformation turns them
into the cathodic materials that are so
important for the batteries
these materials end up in the battery
cell the battery cell is integrated in a
battery the battery is then installed
in the car in order to ensure an
efficient recycling and an efficient
circular economy
these batteries will have to be
collected at the end of their lives and
they will have to be
processed in such a way as to enable
extraction of those materials
so it's absolutely vital to find
an efficient solution here this is a
challenge
for the industry and we as researchers
have a lot to contribute here
a key intermediate product here is the
so-called black
mass which i would like to explain to
you
in some more detail this black mass is
the product of
mechanical processing of used batteries
after collecting the batteries are
disassembled
shredded and sorted
and in this process the metals
that are available in the battery as an
elementary
stage like the copper and aluminum
contacts or the casings made of steel
they can be removed directly and can put
into classical recycling cycles
plastic can be removed in the same way
and what is left is the black mass that
you see in this picture
on the right this black mask contains
the active materials of the battery
they include carbon or graphite from the
anode
and the valuable materials from the
cathode
here we focus in particular on nickel
cobalt and lithium
as you can see in this table there is a
lot more to it
we have a large number of contaminations
with
other metals this is due to the fact
that the sorting step
is not overly precise or clean
and in addition we have elements such as
fluorine it is used in the binder that
is needed to assemble the battery and
it's also part of the electrolyte
you can imagine that we cannot just take
this material
and turn it into a new battery no
instead the black
mass will have to be processed
chemically in such a way as to
enable a meaningful separation
and recycling of the individual
materials there are two ways to do that
pyrometallurgy and hydrometallurgy
pyrometallurgy means that the black mass
or a battery module or several battery
modules
are put into a smelter the smelter
heats it up to about 1500 degrees
centigrade the graphite burns
this provides part of the combustion
energy
but it also increases the carbon
footprint
the precious metals such as nickel
cobalt and copper
are molten and they form an alloy
this alloy can then be separated
and can be split into the individual
components
so this process provides extremely clean
cobalt nickel and copper
and it provides a high yield too the
less noble metals and the contaminations
are separated as slug
at additional substances the slag
formers
are added in order to separate
those slag materials unfortunately
lithium is not a precious metal
chemically
speaking even though it's a valuable
metal and that's why lithium ends up in
the slag here
slag is something that you typically
sell to
the construction industry and it's such
a pity to sell the lithium away with the
rest of the slag
it can be separated but this is very
time consuming
and not very energy efficient
secondly we have hydrometallogy it takes
place at moderate temperatures
in an aqueous sulfuric acid solution
hydromatology can recycle nickel cobalt
and copper as
well as lithium
however hydrometalogy
needs several steps comprises several
steps and that means
a high investment is needed second
some by-products or waste products are
produced
however please note that there are
processes
useful for recycling batteries
nevertheless there is still some need
for innovation with a view to the
lithium
yield the capital cost and the byproduct
range
basf's product process
is based on hydrometalogy and i'm now
going to give you a deep dive
into hydrometallogy at first sight you
can see that there are several
steps each involving a lot of chemistry
so that fits basf pretty well you
pre-treat
the black mass you apply heat treatment
to it
organic components are destroyed
as is part of the fluoride
in the second step the metals are
leeched with the help of sulfuric acid
and as a result you have a sulfuric
solution containing all those metals
that can be
further processed and the metals can be
extracted
individually the chemists among you
may remember the university studies that
taught them the underlying processes
and steps toward the end
of the chain we pick out our cathodic
materials cobalt
nickel and at the very end lithium
now this process chain up to cobalt and
nickel
exists in many places around the globe
namely in metal refineries this is how
cobalt and nickel
from the mines are treated and purified
so there is a lot of technology know how
around
there is the relevant expertise and
reliable tried and tested processes
that we can base the new process on of
course we have to make some adjustments
but you don't have to reinvent the wheel
for lithium it's a little different
because normally you don't find
lithium near the places where you find
nickel and cobalt so this is something
new for us
and this is the point where
we still have a lot of room for
improvement
lithium is extracted in the end
as a carbonate which however is not
easy to solve but it's the best way of
precipitating this lithium from our
sulfuric acid solution
so this doesn't give you much freedom
to do otherwise if you precipitate
lithium carbonate
you have 10 tonnes of
sodium sulfate and other byproducts for
each ton of lithium
so this is not very efficient but if you
use this process to produce cathodic
materials this
already is sufficient to lower the
carbon footprint of those cathodic
materials by 25
so this is good for us it's good for the
environment
and it is good for our customers in the
automotive industry because they keep
looking out for ways to improve their
carbon footprint
it won't come as a surprise to you if i
say that
our research is mainly focused on
lithium because this
is where we see the biggest potential
for innovation
in the classical approach you finally
have
lithium carbonate and sodium sulfate as
a byproduct
that's the standard process but modern
battery materials don't want to use
lithium carbonate
you want lithium hydroxide to make a
modern car battery
of course lithium carbonate can be
converted into lithium hydroxide but
this means yet an
additional step an additional investment
and it means additional chemicals
are required and this in turn means that
your carbon footprint increases
our process and our research tackles
exactly this problem we have developed
the process
to extract the lithium hydroxide
directly
a side effect of this is that you can
extract the lithium first at the very
front of the chain and this gives us
more flexibility
in building the value chain this is what
our process looks like
in the first step we mobilize lithium
in the black mass in the second step
we leach the lithium selectively
in its format as lithium hydroxide
what remains is a black mass containing
everything that was in there before
minus lithium
this black mass can then
be put into a hydrometallurgic
plant for further isolation of cobalt
and nickel
due to this direct lithium hydroxide
extraction process
a sodium sulfate formation is avoided
completely
and we save the additional steps
required to turn
lithium carbonate into lithium hydroxide
by picking the lithium out at the very
beginning
we have the chance of coupling this
process with classical metal refineries
and this
in turn in table enables us
to build the value chain in a simple and
easy way
and in a flexible way so now we have a
flexible way of reducing the carbon
footprint
vis-a-vis classical hydro metallurgy
considerably
it isn't quite as simple as it sounds
the devil's in the detail we don't want
to produce just any kind of lithium
hydroxide we want to have
battery grade lithium hydroxide
so we have to remove
contamination to a two digit ppm
level because if we leave the
contaminants in there
the quality and operation and useful
life of the battery
will be impaired and that's a no go
now here you see what elements in our
highly selective lithium process
are nevertheless still present towards
the end
and we have to do something about these
if a chemist wants to
purify the chemist crystallizes
lithium hydroxide is crystallized
carefully
out of the solution and the contaminants
stay back in the solution it all works
very well
for most elements that we see here but
it doesn't work well
for fluoride because
fluoride
can be removed by way of crystallization
but
only to a certain point from this point
onward the fluoride is made part and
parcel
of the crystal structure of the lithium
hydroxide and it is more fluoride than
we would like to see in our battery
materials
fortunately at basf we have a rich
portfolio of purification technologies
we work for so many industries including
the electronics industry which
is extremely demanding in this respect
and this is why we used our existing
portfolio to develop something new
for iron exchange and absorption
we opted for these technologies and they
enable us to reduce the fluoride content
to the desired level
[Music]
we actually passed the proof of concept
in the lab and we're in the process
of upscaling our process now let me
summarize
what path have we come along and what
challenges
have we been able to cope with
we have talked about how important
efficient lithium recycling is for a
circular battery economy
it is addressed by means of our lithium
hydroxide first process
it enables us to achieve a high yield of
lithium
of course we had to play around with our
process conditions
quite a while in order to really get to
such
maximum yield and to what is also
important
is a high quality of lithium because
only if we have battery grade lithium
will it be able
to go into the next generation of
batteries
and we get there by using complementary
purification technologies in total
basf's innovations are going to
contribute
to build an efficient battery cycle
having said this i would like to pick up
on the
picture i showed you at the very
beginning i think i have been able to
show you that we are on a good track of
optimizing this cycle of improving it by
means of innovative processes
but innovative processes are not enough
it also
takes good partnerships along the value
chain and we are in an excellent
position here at basf together with our
partner networks
we can offer battery material recycling
even today now how can we move on from
here
this year we have successfully concluded
pilot trials we have developed our flow
sheet for the process
and we are in the process of preparing a
pilot plant to be constructed
in 2021 and start it up in 2022
using this pilot plant we want to show
the process
in its entirety want to demonstrate how
it works and we want to find out about
the process parameters needed for
large-scale production
to begin with we will focus our work on
europe
later on we will globally make
battery recycling a reality and this is
the end of my presentation
i am willing to take any questions you
may have
thank you very much miss schiele this
was truly an exciting presentation
and ms schiele is available for any
questions you may have
if you have any question to our expert
please push the asterisk
and one button in order to get through
to us
let's wait for another brief moment
maybe
some more questions will come in
so far we can't see any questions
ah the first questions seem to be coming
in now
has a question good morning
i have a question for clarification the
pilot plant is to
be started in 2022 is that correct yes
that's our plan
we are in the process of preparing the
pilot plant
of course it requires detailed planning
and then construction will take its time
too so we plan to commission it in 2022
and where is it supposed to be built
it's supposed to be built in schweitzer
you
浏览更多相关视频
LMFP Akkus - Hat China den Durchbruch geschafft?
Faktencheck E-Auto – wie umweltfreundlich sind Elektroautos? [2/4] | CO2ntrol | SRF
⚠️ ¡DESMONTO una BATERÍA de 100 kWh! ⚡ | ¿SON tan ECOLÓGICAS como nos VENDEN?
"상당히 큰 파장 예상.." 이미 한국은 시작됐다
The Powerful Possibilities of Recycling the World's Batteries | Emma Nehrenheim | TED
Does the 80% Charging Rule Still Matter? | EV Basics
5.0 / 5 (0 votes)