REVITALISE

Green, low-cost, and environmentally friendly recycling processes for end-of-life batteries.

The REVITALISE project offers a holistic solution for green, low-cost and low environmental impact recycling of lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide (NMC Hi-Ni), lithium iron phosphate (LFP) and sodium-ion (Na-Ion) batteries, representing 85% of battery waste streams up to 2025.

REVITALISE develops low-cost and green processes to recover a full range of battery materials, including NMC, LFP, aluminium, copper, lithium, graphite, fluorides, phosphates and plastics.

The project proves overall recycling rates of over 91% at TRL4 for waste processed from post-production scrap and end-of-life battery black mass.

REVITALISE develops innovative pre-treatment technologies based on electrohydraulic fragmentation, ultrasonication and magnetic, and electrostatic separation that achieve very high levels of material stream purity. This will enable commercially viable recycling of low-value parts.

The REVITALISE approach will enable the direct recycling of 40% of the cathode and anode active parts, with direct lithiation (or sodiation) characterization to be used as the basis for a smart-reformation approach for recovered active materials. The remaining 60% is suitable for hydrometallurgical recycling based on leaching with green organic acids from food waste, such as vitamin C (ascorbates), vinegar (acetate) and citric acid (citrates) and the inorganic acids produced from industrial wastes.

Another innovation of the project is the development of water remediation with lithium recovery from all wastewater streams generated, through the implementation of polymeric nanocomposite membrane separation with direct lithium recycling for lithium concentrations in water down to 0.6 mg/L.

Eurecat, through its Waste, Energy and Environmental Impact (WEEI) Unit, studies the recycling of sodium ion batteries on a laboratory scale and the environmental and economic impact of the solutions proposed in the project. In addition, the Water, Air and Soil (WAS) Unit is responsible for risk analysis based on PHA (Process Hazard Analysis).

The REVITALISE consortium is led by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) and has eight other European partners: Watercycle Technologies, MAB Recycling GmbH, VERKOR, Hydro Energi Invest AS, the University of Münster, the University of Birmingham, ICONIQ Innovation Ltd and Eurecat.