Rapid and economic recycling route to produce battery active materials

Image: Dr Chunhong Lei at the labs at the University of Leicester.

Technoeconomic and life cycle analyses shows that the direct recycling of lithium-ion batteries at end-of-life is an extremely attractive proposition, though such technologies are in their infancy. Unlike existing commercial pyrometallurgical or hydrometallurgical recycling approaches, these methods directly separate the active cathode and anode materials ready for use in future battery manufacture – instead of converting materials back to battery precursors such as metal oxides and carbonates. Direct recycling offers numerous potential benefits including higher retention of economic value, lower environmental impact, higher recovery rates and a lower carbon footprint.

A new patent-pending technology developed at the University of Leicester enables lithium-ion battery black mass, a low-value mixture of anode and cathode and other materials, to be purified directly within minutes of operation at room temperature. The process uses nanoemulsions created from a trace of cooking oil in water.

New protocols have been developed to regenerate the cathode materials recovered and coin cell tests have demonstrated these regenerated materials perform comparably to virgin material. Coin cells have been created from recycled material that conform to the European Battery Directive. The recycling method and regeneration protocols have been successfully tested on various commercial black mass sources, including those high in Co and Ni, with similar positive results.

The group has benchmarked a variety of recycling processes and shown that the energy requirement for long loop recycling is approximately 5.8 MWh per tonne of batteries compared to only 2 MWh/t for direct recycling. The technoeconomic analysis shows that the nanoemulsion-based process can be operated with a high level of profitability.

In autumn 2025, the team was awarded a UKRI proof-of-concept award to work with industry partner EcoShred to scale the process from 100g batches to a continuous flow process capable of producing tens of kilograms per hour.

Case study published December 2025.