Battery knowledge · Recycling and end of life
Sieving and classification
Splitting shredded material by particle size: the fine fraction is mostly black mass, the coarse fractions mostly foil, casing and separator. Air classifiers do the same by size and density in a gas stream.
- Also called
- screening, size classification
Example
Recycling and end of life: an example situation
High mass recovery alone does not establish battery-grade purity or refining energy demand.
Read Sieving and classification 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.