Grave to Cradle: A Direct Recycling Approach for Over‐Discharged LiFePO₄ Electric Vehicle Cells

LiFePO 4 (LFP) is a popular cathode chemistry choice, evidenced by over one‐third of the cathode battery market share. With its extended popularity in the automotive industry, a sustainable recycling and reuse programme needs to be developed to preserve resources. The added challenge in recycling LFP through conventional routes (pyrometallurgy and hydrometallurgy) resides in its low economic value. In this work LFP is successfully directly recycled from over‐discharged 100 Ah CALB prismatic cells. The Cu dissolution from this over‐discharge noted from initial characterisation is shown to be removed by delaminating the cathodic material from the current collectors using water. Observations surrounding the effectiveness of the delamination method are noted. Using a partial carbothermal treatment (which coincides with a classic primary production route of LFP) with the addition of the missing lithium inventory using Li 2 CO 3 , the electrochemical performance is restored and the morphology is retained. Detailed characterisation is presented to validate and understand the processing effects on LFP and the Fe environments including the use of Mössbauer spectroscopy. This method poses a potential drop‐in material route for primary production, and its low emissions route is validated by a life‐cycle assessment, which will allow manufacturers to meet recycling content targets set by legislation.