Projects

Automated soRting and safE pre-procesSing of EoL BaTteries with nOvel smart and fast dismantling, and sepaRation technolgies for direct reuse of high purity materials in Energy storage application

Coordinator:

ACONDICIONAMIENTO TARRASENSE ASSOCIACION [LEITAT]

Description

RESTORE is set to address the most pressing issues faced by recycling companies. It aims to enhance the efficiency, safety, speed, environmental footprint and cost of pre-processing operations, while targeting the recovery of all battery materials at high purity levels. The project’s concept is based on three building blocks, which will allow the reinjection of the recovered materials directly into the battery production chain:

1. Improve upstream processes for the sorting of batteries and the liberation of non-battery materials from EV battery packs
2. Optimise pre-processing of battery materials to effectively separate active and non-active materials
3. Improve downstream process to separate efficiently all battery materials and refine them to battery-grade standards

Objectives

The RESTORE project set out in January 2025 to address the most pressing issues faced by batteries recyclers, notably the diversity of the recycling processes elaborated at company level. By focusing on two established technical routes – dry mechanical and thermal treatment – and introducing two advanced methods – electrohydraulic fragmentation, and unwinding & delamination – RESTORE aims to optimise current recycling processes without imposing companies to readjust their existing industrial setups.

The project’s concept aims not only to shorten the recycling process, but also to improve the efficiency, safety, environmental footprint and costs of pre-processing operations. Additionally, RESTORE will equally unlock the recovery of highly valuable materials currently lost in conventional recycling processes, such as the electrolyte, organic binder, graphite and cathode active material (CAM).

Objectives breakdown:

1. Develop and prototype at TRL a fast, contactless solution to sort batteries by type and chemistry.
2. Develop a novel effective discharging technique for small domestic batteries.
3. Develop a smart, fast and safe automatic solution to dismantle battery pack into components.
4. Develop a fast and safe method to dismantle modules to cells and cells to electrodes, using innovative unwinding, delamination, and electrohydraulic fragmentation for high-purity material separation.
5. Develop advanced pre-processing techniques for high-purity black mass (BM) production from industrial lines using thermal and dry mechanical treatments, and separate high-purity cathodic and anodic materials with advanced beneficiation process.
6. Implement direct formulation of tailored electrodes for new batteries > Direct recycling of cathodic and anodic materials.
7. Achieve zero-waste and cradle-to-cradle recycling for all non-active battery materials, including electrolytes, binders, polymers, and other non-active metals.
8. Develop a safe, economically and environmentally sustainable process. In RESTORE, the techno-economic assessment of the individual processes will determine the most promising processing route from scalability and economic perspectives. This assessment will be complemented by a Safe and Sustainability by Design (SSbD) including Life cycle assessment (LCA).
9. Validate the RESTORE concept and performance of recycled materials on coin cells.

Discover the RESTORE project