Upcycling

Example

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.

Connected concepts

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Direct recycling

Recovering cathode material with its crystal structure intact and relithiating it for reuse, instead of breaking it down to metal salts. It promises lower energy and cost but must handle a mix of chemistries and ages.

High-nickel cathode

A layered oxide with 80 % or more nickel, such as NMC811 or NCA. Nickel raises capacity and lowers cobalt content, but the material is less thermally stable, more sensitive to moisture and ages faster at high voltage.

Relithiation

Restoring the lithium a used cathode material has lost, by heating it with a lithium salt in the solid state or in a hot lithium solution, and re-annealing the crystal. It is the core step of direct recycling and works best on a single, known chemistry.

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.

1. Lithium-Ion Battery Recycling

   U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

   Topic background · Battery construction, recycling routes and U.S. waste-management context.

2. 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.