Abstract

The transition to electromobility brings a strong demand for lithium-ion batteries that will inevitably result in a large amount of waste in the coming future after these batteries reach their end-of-life. A mixed integer linear program was formulated for designing recycling networks of lithium-ion batteries, comparing the performance of pyrometallurgical and hydrometallurgical recycling processes. The conceptual recycling network proposed consists of three nodes: collection centers, recycling processes, and consumption points. According to the model, the recycling of batteries constitutes 57% of the total cost of the network. In addition, the proposed model only considers the recycling of the cathode material. Therefore, it is crucial to develop recycling networks to process all the battery components efficiently. The proposed model is a valuable tool for designing the supply chain network for recycling Li-ion batteries.