Fig. 5: Economic assessment of lithium-ion battery (LIB) recycling at unit and industry levels considering the economy of scale and geospatial configuration.

a Unit battery recycling costs and profits in 2030 and 2060. b Recycling cost assessment of LIBs at the industry level across nine recycling scenarios. RS refers to the baseline scenario in which the cathode chemistry, battery lifespan, recycling technology, and critical material rate develop according to current trends. CC-LFP, CC-NMC, and CC-NCA represent the LFP-dominated, NMC-dominated, and NCA-dominated cathode evolution scenarios, respectively. SL-HIGH is the high battery service life scenario. Under RP-PYR and RP-DIR scenarios, the batteries are adopted pyrometallurgical recycling and direct cathode recycling technology, respectively. MRR-PRO refers to the progressive critical material recycling rate. And the OPT scenario denotes the optimal battery technology and recycling technology transition. In each scenario of (a), the left dot denotes the unit battery recycling costs/profits in 2030, while the right dot indicates the unit battery recycling costs/profits in 2060, reflecting the impact of economies of scale. The battery recycling net profits aggregate the cost and revenue of disassembly and recycling processes, and the cost of transportation and collection related to LIB recycling.