Lithium Batteries Production

GEA's extensive lithium solutions for battery production

The purified lithium is converted into electrolytes, which act as a conductive medium in batteries. Lithium is combined with other materials to form anodes and cathodes, essential for battery production. GEA's spray drying technology produces high-quality lithium cathode and anode materials, enabling the production of resource-efficient batteries.

• Spray drying of cathode and anode materials
  GEA's spray drying technology is used to produce high-quality lithium cathode and anode materials. This process involves atomizing a liquid feed into a hot drying chamber, where the solvent evaporates, leaving behind fine, dry particles. These particles are essential for the production of lithium-ion batteries 

• Solvent recovery and refining
  During the battery production process, GEA also offers solutions for solvent recovery. This ensures that valuable solvents are not wasted and can be reused in the production process, enhancing efficiency and resource efficiency.

Finally, the electrodes and electrolytes are assembled into battery cells. And assembled in large blocks integrated in various devices such as electronic vehicles.

Recycling of Battery Material

Recycling lithium batteries is crucial to reduce environmental impact and reuse valuable resources. The recycling process involves several steps to recover and reuse the materials:

• Collection and Sorting: Used batteries are collected and sorted by type and condition to ensure proper recycling.

• Component Separation and Material Preparation: The batteries are disassembled, and the various components such as lithium, cobalt, nickel, and other metals are separated using the following unit operation steps:
  
  - Evaporative Concentration for concentrating lithium brine.
  - Precipitation: for impurity removal.
  - Crystallization: for production of high-purity lithium salts.
  - Separation: Solid/liquid separation equipment.
  - Drying: of lithium hydroxide and lithium carbonate as intermediates for battery production.

• Reuse and Manufacturing: The recycled materials are reused in new batteries or other products, reducing the need for new raw materials

Efficient recycling of lithium batteries helps close the loop of material usage and promotes circularity in battery production.

By combining advanced manufacturing processes and effective recycling methods, lithium becomes a key resource for the future of energy.

Process Development Expertise

With a rich history in supplying systems for the purification, recovery, and drying of organic& inorganic chemicals, we leverage our advanced separation, evaporation, crystallization, and drying technologies. Our cutting-edge R&D capabilities are designed to optimize process design, ensuring efficient product quality and minimizing performance risks. We design and supply commercial equipment, taking full responsibility for the processes we develop. We offer complete process guarantees, seamlessly scaling up from lab to commercial systems.

In lithium-ion battery production, high-purity precursor materials are essential. Our technological expertise and specialized testing enable us to identify the right processes to achieve the desired purity levels, even from unique sources with varying contaminant levels. This is particularly important for sensitive compounds like nickel and cobalt.