Life Cycle Impacts of Recycling of Black Mass Obtained from End-of-Life Zn-C and Alkaline Batteries Using Waelz Kiln

Abstract

The utilization of end-of-life batteries (including Zn-C and alkaline batteries) is one of the areas that need to be perfected in order to provide environmental and human safety as well as to contribute to closing the material loop, as described in the EU Green Deal. The presented study shows the environmental impacts of the two selected pyrometallurgical technologies (processing of the black mass from waste Zn-C and alkaline batteries as an additive to an existing process of the recycling of steelmaking dust and treatment of the black mass as the primary waste material, both processes performed in a Waelz kiln). The presented LCA-based study of the recycling of end-of-life Zn-C and alkaline batteries focused on terrestrial ecotoxicity can be a useful tool in the process of the development of a circular economy in Europe, as it provides a multi-disciplinary overview of the most important environmental loads associated with the described recycling technologies. Therefore, the goal of the presented study was to compare the environmental performance (utilizing LCA) of two different metallurgical processes of black mass utilization, i.e., the conventional method utilizing black mass as a co-substrate and the newly developed method utilizing black mass as a primary substrate.