A techno-economic evaluation of the hydrometallurgical recycling of mixed CAM black mass from spent LIB cells

The increasing diversity of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) has introduced a range of cathode active materials (CAMs), with at least five major types currently in use. Regarding current recycling practices, end-of-life LIB cells are typically processed without any presorting, which results in a mixed CAM black mass input for hydrometallurgical treatment. This study evaluates the performance of a standard hydrometallurgical process under mixed CAM conditions and compares it with two hypothetical presorting scenarios by using a total cost of ownership (TCO) approach. Technically, the presence of lithium iron phosphate (LFP) black mass causes impurities that negatively affect process efficiency. Economically, the usage of partial presorting alone to recover cobalt-rich fractions results in a lower overall value compared to the mixed CAM baseline, due to the reduced marketability of the remaining material. However, further removal of LFP and lithium manganese oxide (LMO) improves both process quality and economic profitability, as most of the black mass can then be treated without major contaminants. The results also indicate that the hydrometallurgical process evaluated is not suitable for LFP recycling, thus highlighting the need for specific treatment strategies for phosphate-based chemistries.