The Lithium in batteries can’t be economically recycled?
Direct recycling is an alternative that basically deconstructs the battery and retains the cathode and anode materials to be reconditioned. This method is in its early days, but it has the potential to be cheaper, safer, and more efficient. The process is made difficult by the need to manually break down a huge range of battery formats. A lithium battery pack contains modules that contain cells, and these cells are where the valuable metals are found. Manually getting to these cells is doable but tedious, and automation is needed to process high volumes