Cost competitive process for recycling Cobalt from end of life Li-ion batteries

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The Black Mass is a residue of the Li-ion spent batteries (LIB) composed by Cobalt, Nickel, Manganese, Copper, Lithium, Iron and Carbonates, currently disposed as special waste for the lack of cost-competitive metals recovery technologies. The steep growth of electric vehicles (EV) and hybrid-electric vehicles (HEV) market, projected to reach respectively 25 million and 7.6 million units by 2025, is leading to an unparalleled increase of the Black Mass amount to be disposed (up to 4 million tons by 2025) with an unsustainable expense for the industrial players (100 €/ton). But the Black Mass is a potential source of Cobalt, a critical material for the battery manufacturing: today, more than 60% of the global Cobalt comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo, with a steeply growing trend of its price due to political instability and market demand increase. Cobalt price is highly fluctuating, but it is foreseen to reach >100 €/kg from 2022, with an extra cost of 600 M€/year for EV industry. Recycling the Cobalt contained in the spent batteries would allow to mitigate the price and reduce the dependence of European companies on imports. CoReco is an innovative and cost competitive process able to recover Cobalt, Nickel, Manganese and Copper contained in the Black Mass derived from the recycling of LIB with high purity. CoReco uses 2 innovative solutions: a Top Blown Rotary Converter for smelting, much more efficient and compact than competing solutions; a single reactor for all subsequent hydrometallurgical purification steps. CoReco is able to recover 98% of Ni, Co, Mn and Cu contained in the Black Mass and to reach > 99% purity of the Cobalt for reuse as secondary raw material for the LIB manufacturing. The compactness and low CAPEX of the plant makes CoReco the most competitive recycling solution on the market: the target Cost of Recovery (CoR) is < 1,200 €/ton (including CAPEX and OPEX), 30% less than competing solutions, making recycling industrially viable.