Battery knowledge · Recycling and end of life
Froth flotation
Separating graphite from the oxide particles in black mass by making the water-repellent graphite cling to air bubbles that carry it into a froth. It lets graphite be recovered rather than burned, and leaves cleaner metal oxides for leaching.
Example
Recycling and end of life: an example situation
High mass recovery alone does not establish battery-grade purity or refining energy demand.
Read Froth flotation alongside Black mass in this context. The dark powder of mixed electrode materials left after end-of-life cells are discharged, shredded and separated from their casings, foils and separators. It is the traded intermediate that hydrometallurgical refiners buy.
Use in Lemonergy
Distinguish recovered material from a qualified product.
This is a reference concept. No executable Lemonergy block has been verified for this term.
References & further reading
Further reading on this topic
These sources provide broader context; they are not presented as citations for every statement in this entry.
- Lithium-Ion Battery Recycling
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Topic background · Battery construction, recycling routes and U.S. waste-management context.
- Recycling lithium-ion batteries from electric vehicles
Gavin Harper et al. · Nature · 2019
Topic background · Reuse, disassembly and mechanical, hydro-, pyro- and direct recycling routes.