Baseline techno-economic and life cycle assessment of black mass production

Recycling lithium-ion batteries hinges on economically producing black mass—the electrode powder concentrate that feeds downstream metal recovery—yet public baselines pairing real process economics with environmental impacts remain scarce. Here we show that a purely mechanical flowsheet—shredding, zigzag air classification, and circular screen vibration—applied identically to two structurally distinct feedstocks recovers black mass at 93.28 wt % separation efficiency from electric-vehicle modules and 75.77 wt % from mobile phone cells. Built on measured pilot data, loaded processing costs of $0.31–0.73/kg yield net profits of $4.39–5.53/kg under realistic feedstock purchase prices, with a probability of unprofitability below 0.2% across simulated market scenarios. Life cycle assessment attributes most impacts to grid electricity, with a global warming potential of 0.210–0.241 kg CO 2 eq./kg input; a low-carbon grid cuts this by 62.8%. This paired baseline enables benchmarking of emerging recycling routes and supports circular battery supply chains.