Pretreating batteries before recycling may not be all it's charged up to be

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2026-02-06 21:00

Australia; International; VIC

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When lithium-ion batteries reach their end of life, one recycling strategy is pretreatment - where the spent batteries are shredded into a powdery mix of lithium, cobalt, nickel, manganese, and graphite, known as 'black mass'. But Australian and Chinese researchers have found that pretreatment actually accounts for the biggest material loss in the recycling process, contributing 16-38% of the environmental impacts of lithium-ion battery recycling. The team also proposed a new method that could see half of the environmental impacts of the recycling process eliminated. While this change would require further research initiatives, policy design and technology advancements to get rolling, the team believes it could help achieve a circular economy in lithium battery production.