Recycling of Lithium from Discarded Battery Materials

Project Lead: Prof. Andrew Harris, University of Sydney
Project Partners: Novalith Technologies 

Project Overview

This project is scaling up an innovative process to recycle lithium from end-of-life Li-ion batteries. When shredded, this battery material is known as black mass. This novel process is safer, as it avoids harsh chemicals, selectively recovers lithium, and is more scalable with lower costs compared to existing methods. This advancement supports a circular economy and enhances the sustainable management of Li-ion batteries. 

The increased uptake of EVs will be an important step in meeting sustainability targets in line with the Paris Climate Agreement. Sustainable recycling of waste Li-ion batteries will be crucial in establishing a circular economy. 

The University of Sydney (Hub-Partner) in collaboration with Novalith (Industry Body) is planning to scale up a novel process for recycling lithium from discarded Li-ion battery materials (typically referred to as black mass) which can then be processed into new batteries. 

This new process offers technological and commercial advantages over existing technologies including: 

• Safety: No harsh chemicals and acids
• Selectively recovering lithium
• Scalability: lower CAPEX and OPEX 

With EESN support, the project will hire 2 USyd researchers to construct a pilot plant (TRL5) of its lab-proven technology (currently TRL4), to recover lithium from black mass.

Objectives and Deliverables:

Develop a working pilot plant (TRL5) for the lab-proven lithium battery recovery technology (currently TRL4), with the capacity to recover the lithium from 400 kg of black mass per annum (permanently sequestering CO2 in the process) and generating 100 kg of lithium carbonate, saleable into the supply chain of battery manufacturing. 

• Demonstrate the ability of the process to deliver a greater than 50% reduction in energy required to recover lithium. 
• The purpose of the pilot plant is to develop and optimise working processes at a higher scale through iterative technical work to prove the commercial viability of the process. 
• The project plan ensures the right technical resources are undertaking the research required to demonstrate this novel and beneficial process can cost-effectively scale into commercial. 
• The proposal will directly generate 4 skilled jobs, build a pilot facility capable of processing 400 kg of black mass annually and attract sophisticated investors.

Impact on Net Zero Targets

The exploration and extraction of critical minerals such as Lithium from natural resources such as hard rock, clay and brines are energy-intensive processes Recycling of Li-ion batteries reduces the carbon footprint of mineral processing in critical resources and generates a more circular economy. 

Locally, the NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) has recently raised concerns with waste Li-ion batteries at the Australian Battery Recycling and Manufacturing Summit in August 2023. The EPA reported that 114 lithium battery-related fires occurred in the first six months of 2023 and Li-ion battery waste across Australia may grow from 5,290 tonnes to about 162,000 tonnes by 2036.