€1.90 per kilo: the number framing Fraunhofer's new recycling tool

Recycling a lithium-ion battery pack in Europe currently costs recyclers an average of €1.90 per kilogram more than it earns them. That figure, from the EU research project Safeloop, is the economic backdrop to a new calculation tool developed by Fraunhofer, designed to let recycling companies, technology providers and battery manufacturers compare recycling processes on a uniform basis, both economically and ecologically.

The Safeloop study identified three main cost drivers behind the per-kilogram loss: hazardous goods transport, disassembly, and uncertainty over how much material can actually be recovered. The researchers examined conditions currently prevailing in Europe. The message is blunt: without better process economics, the recycling chain loses money on average before it even reaches the question of scale.

What does the Fraunhofer tool actually do?

The Modular Lifecycle Tool, as the model is called, breaks the entire recycling chain into individual areas, process steps and technologies using a modular principle. A user can, for example, compare different shredding processes and analyse how each choice affects everything that happens downstream.

This matters because available recycling methods differ not only in energy consumption and recovery rates. Decisions taken at an early stage also shape the quality of recovered materials and the amount of work required in later stages. A cheap shredding step can impose costs further along the chain, and until now there has been no common basis for quantifying that trade-off.

The tool works from a database of individual process steps. Users enter parameters such as material throughput and the composition of the batteries to be recycled, then assemble customised process chains from the modules.

Which factors feed the calculation?

The model tracks material flows along the whole recycling chain and links them to economic and ecological key performance indicators. The calculation incorporates:

• energy consumption and CO₂ emissions
• operating and investment costs
• revenue from recovered raw materials
• disposal costs
• the regional electricity mix
• labour costs
• plant utilisation

Location and utilisation are treated as variables, not constants. A process that breaks even at a plant running at full capacity in a low-carbon, low-cost electricity region may not break even elsewhere.

Because the model links the steps together, it shows what happens when a single parameter changes. If throughput, separation efficiency or a recovery rate shifts, the tool displays the impact on downstream process steps, costs and emissions. That allows users to pinpoint which parts of a chain are particularly cost-intensive or emission-intensive, and to test scenarios for scaling battery recycling up to industrial volumes.

"With this tool, we aim to make different recycling concepts comparable on a common basis and thereby create a robust foundation for technological and strategic decisions," said Benedikt Gruber, a research associate at Fraunhofer FFB. He added that the model can serve two purposes: optimising existing recycling processes and evaluating new technologies before they are deployed.

How was it built, and what comes next?

Fraunhofer developed the Modular Lifecycle Tool as part of a consortium study. The partners came from the recycling industry, plant engineering and consulting, which grounds the model in practical plant data rather than laboratory assumptions.

Three expansions are planned for the evaluation framework: additional battery chemistries, regionally differentiated datasets, and regulatory scenarios. The regulatory element is the one to watch. If the tool can model how rules on recovered material, transport of damaged cells or carbon accounting change the per-kilogram result, it becomes a policy instrument as much as an engineering one.

For now, the benchmark remains Safeloop's minus €1.90 per kilogram. Watch for the first published comparisons using the tool — and for whether any operator can show a process chain that turns that figure positive without subsidy.