[Report] Batteries Made from Used Lithium Batteries... Visiting DS Danseok Recycling Plant

On the 9th, in a corner of DS Danseok Gunsan Plant 1 in Gunsan, Jeonbuk, there were about ten sacks filled with black powder. The fine powder, resembling flour, was not unfamiliar. It reminded me of graphite, commonly used as pencil lead. I was half correct about the identity of the powder. The exact name of this powder is Black mass. It is a powder made by crushing used batteries, created to extract ions remaining in spent batteries for reuse in battery manufacturing. Graphite (carbon), used as an anode material in batteries, accounts for about 30% of the Black mass.

The appearance of lithium-ion battery black mass produced by DS Danseok.
[Photo by Lee Seong-min]

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On that day, DS Danseok inaugurated a lithium-ion battery recycling plant. They added lithium-ion battery recycling process facilities on idle land where lead (Pb) or copper production facilities used to be. As the secondary battery market rapidly grows, they aim to expand their business area into lithium-ion battery recycling by utilizing battery recycling technology.

The recycling process of lithium-ion batteries is broadly divided into pretreatment and post-treatment. Pretreatment is the process of crushing waste batteries to make Black mass. Post-treatment is the process of finally extracting raw materials used in battery manufacturing, such as lithium, from the Black mass obtained in the pretreatment process.

This is an image of lead waste batteries used as raw materials at DS Danseok Gunsan Plant 1. [Photo by DS Danseok]

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The lithium-ion battery plant newly established by DS Danseok corresponds to the pretreatment process. It differs somewhat from the existing system at Gunsan Plant 1, which produces recycled lead from lead waste batteries. Recycled lead is made by crushing lead batteries, mixing them with solvents to form a paste, and then selectively extracting lead components from impurities to form an ingot.

In contrast, to make Black mass, a discharge treatment is first performed to prevent explosions. Then, the crushed discharged batteries undergo a heat treatment process called calcination. To remove impurities from the Black mass, sorting processes such as magnetic separation and gravity separation are conducted. DS Danseok carries out a total of six impurity sorting steps. The resulting Black mass is said to have a purity of over 90%. A company official hinted, "We understand that the purity of Black mass produced by other companies is about 80-85%, but by conducting multiple impurity sorting processes, we have significantly increased the purity."

Crushed waste batteries undergo a six-step impurity sorting process to become high-purity black mass.
[Photo by DS Danseok]

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Secondary batteries recycle the entire cell without distinguishing between anode and cathode materials, so Black mass contains ions such as nickel, cobalt, manganese, and lithium mixed together. It is typically composed of about 35% nickel-cobalt-manganese (NCM), 30% carbon, and 3.5% lithium. The Black mass produced in this way is supplied to companies with post-treatment process facilities, where raw materials that can be made into batteries are extracted and then supplied to battery manufacturers.

The production of Black mass could not be observed at the plant that day because mass production has not yet started. DS Danseok estimates that once full-scale operations begin, they will be able to produce about 5,000 tons of Black mass annually. Junho Park, senior researcher of the Metal Materials Development Team at DS Danseok’s R&D department, said, "We are currently only in the commissioning phase, but we plan to start full-scale operation from next month."

DS Danseok, which entered the battery recycling business in 2011, has set a goal to create vertical integration for lithium-ion battery recycling, starting with the establishment of Black mass manufacturing facilities. Considering the characteristics of the post-treatment process, which requires large quantities at once, they plan to secure at least 30,000 tons of Black mass before introducing wet extraction-based post-treatment process facilities. They also plan to produce NCM precursors and other products using only recycled raw materials.

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