Revitalise - Recycling of low-value components using high-purity pre-treatment, dIrect recycling, and green hydrometallurgical approaches for recycling of Lithium-Ion and Sodium-Ion batteries

Funded by Horizon Europe.

REVITALISE is a Horizon Europe project developing holistic solutions to recycle the full range of battery materials expected to make up 85% of battery waste streams by 2050, targeting a recycling rate above 91% at TRL4. The project targets key chemistries — high-nickel NMC, LFP, and sodium-ion — through pre-treatment, direct recycling, hydrometallurgy, and effluent remediation, aiming to recover both high- and low-value battery components at high purity for reuse in new battery production.

NTNU coordinates and leads Work Package 3, developing the project's hydrometallurgical processes. Building on "low-grade" black mass from WP1's pre-treatment, WP3 has optimized both selective leaching (to recover lithium using water, inorganic, and organic acids) and total leaching (to recover all metals) across black masses of varying chemistries. HCl has been identified as the leaching agent of choice, as its performance is robust across different feed chemistries, with HCl-based flowsheets now being validated; a lithium-salt flowsheet from water leaching has already been validated at lab scale, and total leaching has been used to purify graphite from black mass. For sodium-ion batteries, a dedicated sulfuric/citric acid flowsheet recovers nickel and manganese via precipitation, with purity improvements ongoing. This work is complemented by a machine learning model (WP8) that predicts leaching yields of Li, Ni, Mn, and Co from cathode oxides with 6% mean absolute error.

These developments sit within the project's broader pipeline: WP1 has demonstrated pre-treatment technologies (electrohydraulic fragmentation, electrostatic/magnetic separation) achieving high-purity separation of cathode and anode materials; WP2 has shown selective leaching and relithiation of NMC recovered from mixed LFP-NMC streams, with performance matching pristine material; WP4 is developing membranes for lithium recovery from effluents (~100% recovery achieved); and WP5–WP7 handle life cycle/techno-economic evaluation, dissemination, and overall project coordination.