Methodology to quantify the recyclability of design alternatives for highly integrated technical products applied to lithium-ion batteries

High manufacturability and usability demands lead to an increasing complexity of technical products, which in turn reduces their recyclability. However, to assess the consequences a dedicated Design for Recycling would have in End of Life is challenging due to the complex dependencies between product design and recycling systems which are particularly difficult to estimate in early-stage product development. It is especially the economic benefits, however, that need to be made transparent to reach a widespread application of Design for Recycling in industry. Therefore, this paper presents a methodology to assess economic aspects of a design-dependent End of Life behavior of a product with minimal initial information, which reflects the constraints typical for Product Development Processes. It offers a structured analytical evaluation of design impacts on costs and revenues as well as on the recycling progress that the single steps throughout the End-of-Life process chain would entail. The methodology is exemplarily applied to two electric bike batteries that exhibit significant differences in terms of their recyclability. Results show that these differences are clearly identifiable and the advantages of the more recycling-friendly design can be demonstrated.