Battery knowledge · Supply chain and regulation
Virgin material
Raw material extracted from mines or brines rather than recovered by recycling. Recycled-content rules count the share of a battery's cobalt, lithium, nickel and lead that did not come from virgin sources.
- Also called
- primary raw material
Example
What the loop lacks is bought virgin
An NMC 622 batch of 8000 kg needs 573 kg of lithium; with 500 kg recovered, 73 kg is bought virgin and the batch’s lithium is 87 % recycled.
w_Li is 0.0716 in NMC 622. A recovered surplus beyond the recipe is left over and does not raise the batch’s recycled share above 100 %.
See it in the plant
- Balance the recipe: NMC 622 is LiNi0.6Co0.2Mn0.2O2. Of the elements that must come from the loop, Mn runs out first, so it sets the batch: 7942 kg.
- Co-precipitate: the nickel, cobalt and manganese sulfates are dissolved and precipitated together as a mixed hydroxide precursor, with ammonia controlling particle growth.
- Top up: 70.3 kg of Li is bought virgin, which lowers the recycled content of Li.
- Fire: the mixture is fired in ceramic trays and it becomes NMC622 cathode, with recycled content Li 88%, Ni 100%, Co 100%, Mn 100%.
Explore the graph
An element allowed to be bought tops the batch up to its recipe, which lowers the recycled share of that element.
An NMC 622 batch of 8000 kg needs 573 kg of lithium; with 500 kg recovered, 73 kg is bought virgin and the batch’s lithium is 87 % recycled.
m_virgin = max(0, w_e × m_CAM − m_e,recovered); recycled share = 1 − m_virgin / (w_e × m_CAM)
Illustrative model. w_Li is 0.0716 in NMC 622. A recovered surplus beyond the recipe is left over and does not raise the batch’s recycled share above 100 %.
Use in Lemonergy
Keep boundaries, dates, geography and units.
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.
- Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 concerning batteries and waste batteries
European Union / EUR-Lex · 2023
Topic background · Battery sustainability, information, waste management and battery passport provisions. Consult the current consolidated text and applicable implementing acts.