2026 Mueller LFP Black Mass Mechanical Separation

Industrial-scale recycling processes are well established for nickel–manganese–cobalt (NMC) cell chemistries, primarily due to the high economic value of constituent metals such as cobalt and nickel. In contrast, lithium–iron–phosphate (LFP) batteries lack comparable infrastructure, largely due to the lower value of their active materials. While lithium is the element of primary interest, graphite has gained increasing attention due to its classification as a critical raw material in the European Union. Among the available separation techniques for graphite, flotation is commonly applied, but it requires energy-intensive thermal pretreatment of the black mass, making it less suitable for LFP recycling. This study presents a simplified and potentially cost-advantageous method for the physical separation of cathode and anode materials from LFP black mass. Although complete separation was not achieved, the process yielded comparable enrichment of graphite to flotation in the fine fraction (< 63 µm), thereby enhancing the efficiency of subsequent hydrometallurgical treatments by concentrating active materials and minimizing carbon-rich impurities. The method has been successfully scaled up, demonstrating its practical applicability. For comparison, the same procedure was applied to NMC black mass, but no significant separation was observed, highlighting the material-specific suitability of this approach for LFP systems.