Metallurgical and mechanical methods for recycling of lithium-ion battery pack for electric vehicles

Due to enormous growth of production of electric vehicles, it is estimated by the year 2020 about 250,000 tons of battery must be disposed or recycled. The technology to recycle this much amount of batteries in a single year does not exist., neither does the methods for recycling are standardized because of different configurations of battery packs. A challenge strictly poses on how to deal with lithium ion batteries, which are embedded in hundreds or more in a battery pack. Furthermore, the recovery of materials from the battery in the pack is essential to ensure the growth and sustainability of the electric vehicle market. It is desirable to establish a framework that is semi-automated/automated for ensuring faster disassembly of battery pack, identification and detection of residual energy of batteries in packs and recovery of materials from batteries. This review paper summarizes the two main basic aspects of recycling battery packs: mechanical procedure and chemical recycling (metallurgical). The work summarizes the existing recycling technology in these two aspects and identifies important research problems in the process of recycling of pack such as (i) automatic and intelligent recovery system, (ii) efficiency and safety disassemble of battery pack (iii) Adjustment of Chaos in recycling market (iv) Recovery processes for slag, electrolyte and anode, (v) Application in industrial scale, and (vi) development of recycling methods for new batteries having components with different properties. This paper also proposes a framework to push the recycling process from conception to practicality, both on government incentive polices and effective recycling technology.