Dismantling

Example

See it in the plant

1. Discharge: 6.0 MWh of returned packs, 50.77 t in all, are discharged before anyone opens them, so no stored energy is left to cause a short circuit.
2. Open: the lid, its seals and fasteners come off.
3. Strip: busbars, the wiring harness, the BMS board, cooling plates and the housing are removed. 20.39 t leaves as recovered parts, mostly aluminium and steel with some copper.
4. Release: the robot lifts the modules out. 30.38 t of cells and what stays attached to them goes on to the shredder.

Use in Lemonergy

Distinguish recovered material from a qualified product.

This is a reference concept. No executable Lemonergy block has been verified for this term.

Connected concepts

Related concepts from the knowledge graph. Connections show context, not cause and effect. Hover or focus a linked term for its definition.

Deactivation

Removing the stored energy before a battery is opened or shredded: electrically through a load, often recovering the energy; by immersion in a salt solution, which is simple but corrodes terminals and makes wastewater; or by cryogenic or thermal treatment. A shredder fed a charged battery is a fire risk.

Design for recycling

Choosing pack and cell constructions — bolted rather than glued modules, labelled chemistries, no potting — that make end-of-life dismantling fast and safe. It trades a little production convenience for a large saving at the recycler.

Remanufacturing and repair

Restoring a pack to its original duty by replacing failed or weak modules, cells, electronics or seals, then retesting it. It keeps the most value of any end-of-life route, and depends on packs that can be opened and on cells that can be matched.

Shredding

Breaking cells or modules into fragments, under an inert gas, in a liquid or in a vacuum so that the released electrolyte and any remaining charge cannot ignite. Off-gas treatment captures the solvent vapour and the hydrogen fluoride it forms.

References & further reading

Technical references

1. Recycling lithium-ion batteries from electric vehicles

   Gavin Harper et al. · Nature · 2019

   Technical reference · Reuse, disassembly and mechanical, hydro-, pyro- and direct recycling routes.

Further reading on this topic

These sources provide broader context; they are not presented as citations for every statement in this entry.

2. Lithium-Ion Battery Recycling

   U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

   Topic background · Battery construction, recycling routes and U.S. waste-management context.