Lithium Battery Recycling
I. Industry Pain Points
The stockpile of decommissioned lithium batteries in China is surging year by year. Demand for recycling power batteries, energy storage batteries, and digital device waste batteries continues to explode, but traditional lithium battery recycling processes generally suffer from numerous shortcomings. Most small-scale recycling production lines rely on manual pre-processing, open crushing, and simple mechanical sorting, with low overall automation. First, significant safety hazards: manual dismantling and open crushing of batteries with residual charge can easily trigger fires and thermal runaway, posing extremely high plant safety risks. Second, substandard environmental compliance: traditional equipment cannot effectively treat electrolyte exhaust gas, dust, and volatile organic compounds, easily causing exhaust gas and dust leakage. Environmental impact assessment approval rates are low and rectification costs are high. At the same time, traditional processes have poor resource utilization rates: copper and aluminum are intermixed, and black mass loss is severe, resulting in low overall metal recovery rates and limited enterprise profitability. Beyond this, traditional equipment involves cumbersome procedures, lengthy pre-processing time, and high labor input, resulting in low production efficiency that struggles to meet large-scale, compliant mass production requirements, severely constraining the stable operation and expansion of lithium battery recycling enterprises.
II. Solution Introduction
Addressing five major industry pain points — poor safety, weak environmental protection, low recovery rates, high labor costs, and difficult compliance — we have developed an integrated fully automated lithium battery recycling solution. Compatible with all categories of end-of-life lithium batteries including ternary, LFP, cylindrical, and pouch cells, the solution suits both small and medium-sized recycling plants and large-scale regeneration bases, achieving a full closed-loop production of safe battery crushing, pollution-free processing, high-precision sorting, and efficient resource regeneration.
The entire production line abandons traditional water-soaking pre-discharge processes, instead adopting nitrogen-sealed inert atmosphere crushing technology that can directly process end-of-life batteries with residual charge, eliminating lengthy discharge steps, substantially shortening the production flow, and preventing battery fire and explosion risks at the source. The equipment operates under full-process negative-pressure enclosed conditions, eliminating dust escape and electrolyte odor diffusion, with a clean and compliant production environment. The crushed mixed material enters a low-temperature oxygen-free pyrolysis system, where constant-temperature decomposition of organic impurities such as internal battery electrolyte and binders occurs, thoroughly stripping positive and negative electrode black mass, copper and aluminum metals, and separator plastics, resolving the industry challenges of material adhesion and incomplete sorting.
After pyrolysis treatment, the material enters a multi-stage composite sorting system. Through a combined multi-process approach of magnetic separation, air separation, specific gravity separation, and eddy current separation, iron impurities, plastic separators, copper granules, aluminum granules, and battery black mass are separated layer by layer with high sorting precision, effectively reducing high-value material loss. The system is also equipped with a complete closed-loop exhaust gas and dust purification system: exhaust gas undergoes multi-stage purification before compliant discharge, with zero secondary pollution. The entire equipment line is equipped with an intelligent control system supporting fully automated start/stop, automated O&M, and real-time monitoring of equipment temperature and chamber environment, significantly reducing manual attendance and lowering operating costs. It fully meets the three core requirements of environmental acceptance, safe production, and large-scale mass production, helping enterprises easily achieve compliant commissioning and stable profitability.
III. Core Sub-Function Details
No battery pre-discharge required; can directly process end-of-life lithium batteries with residual charge. The crushing chamber is fully nitrogen-inert protected throughout, paired with real-time fire and temperature monitoring devices and millisecond-level emergency protection, thoroughly eliminating battery thermal runaway and fire/explosion issues. The fully enclosed negative-pressure structure prevents dust escape, resolving production safety and workshop dust problems at the source, with production efficiency improved by over 50% compared with traditional processes.
Precision constant-temperature pyrolysis efficiently decomposes battery electrolyte, adhesive layers, and organic binders, thoroughly separating positive and negative electrode materials from copper/aluminum foil and separators, resolving the problems of impure sorting and black mass loss caused by material adhesion. The system is equipped with a dedicated exhaust gas purification unit that effectively treats VOCs and acidic exhaust gases, with all emission indicators surpassing national and industry standards, helping enterprises quickly pass environmental impact assessments.
Integrating magnetic separation, air separation, specific gravity separation, and eddy current separation in a multi-process combination, the system screens and purifies layer by layer, precisely separating iron impurities, plastics, copper, aluminum, black mass, and other material types. It effectively avoids copper-aluminum intermixing and metal entrainment loss, substantially improving finished product purity and resource recovery rates. Output materials can be directly sold externally or returned to the plant for regeneration and reuse.
The entire production line features integrated intelligent control, supporting fully automated operation, one-touch start/stop, automatic fault alarms, and remote monitoring. Equipment operating data is automatically archived; multi-person attendance is unnecessary, significantly reducing labor costs. The equipment operates stably with low failure rates, suitable for long-term uninterrupted mass production.
- Nitrogen-sealed charged battery crushing system
- Low-temperature oxygen-free pyrolysis system
- Multi-stage composite sorting system
- Fully automated intelligent control system
Application Cases
Case 1: New energy solid waste processing demonstration project, primarily processing decommissioned LFP power batteries, using our complete lithium battery recycling equipment line for stable mass production operations. Project results: Equipment hourly throughput is stable, with annual end-of-life battery processing capacity reaching the 10,000-ton level. Copper metal recovery rate >=98%, aluminum recovery rate >=95%, battery black mass recovery rate >=98%, with high finished product purity suitable for direct regeneration and reuse. The production line operates fully automated, reducing labor costs by 40%, with full-process environmental compliance and zero complaints. It successfully passed environmental impact assessment and safe production acceptance, becoming a local zero-waste factory demonstration project. The enterprise achieved stable profitability immediately upon commissioning. Project results: Equipment demonstrated strong continuous operation stability with no incidents of fire, dust, or exhaust gas exceedance. Overall comprehensive resource recovery rate improved by over 15%, effectively reducing loss of high-value lithium battery materials. Compared with traditional equipment, overall energy consumption was reduced by 25%, and production efficiency was substantially improved, helping the enterprise achieve large-scale compliant mass production and significantly enhancing overall project returns.
VI. Solution Value
Full closed-loop environmental process with compliant treatment of exhaust gas, dust, and solid waste, eliminating environmental penalty risks. Easily passes environmental impact assessments and safety evaluations, resolving the core challenges of difficult commissioning and acceptance for recycling enterprises.
Eliminates cumbersome pre-processing steps with high mass production efficiency. High resource recovery rates and excellent finished product purity substantially increase material added value. The equipment features a high degree of automation, effectively reducing labor, energy consumption, and O&M costs. Project payback period is short with strong profitability stability.
Achieves harmless, resource-based green circular utilization of end-of-life lithium batteries, reducing resource waste, supporting standardized treatment of new energy solid waste, and driving the lithium battery recycling industry toward safer, more standardized, and greener upgrades.
- Compliance Value
- Economic Value
- Industry Value
Image Gallery
