Assessment of recycling and material reuse in NMC batteries

Sustainable recycling of nickel–manganese–cobalt (NMC) batteries depends on the interaction between cathode chemistry, recycling pathway and material-specific recovery. This study applies the Environmental Footprint (EF 3.0)/Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) framework across 16 impact categories to NMC 532, 622 and 811 using a fixed 40 kWh reference configuration, chemistry-specific material inventories, representative Ecoinvent v3.8 hydrometallurgical (HMP) and pyrometallurgical (PMP) treatment datasets, and literature-derived high- and low-recovery scenarios. Post-recycling burdens combine direct treatment impacts with the virgin-material top-up required after incomplete recovery under a 1:1 closed-loop substitution assumption. Moving from NMC 532 to 811 reduces the virgin-material single score by ∼ 18%, whereas the corresponding direct recycling change is ∼ 10%. At the treatment stage, HMP gives a 19% lower single-score PEF than PMP and is lower in 12 of 16 categories. Under high-recovery conditions, HMP gives the lowest post-recycling burden, ∼96–97% below the corresponding virgin-material baseline, while PMP gives 92–93% lower PEF. Recovery losses can reverse the route ranking; for HMP, incomplete graphite recovery is a dominant driver of residual virgin-material burden. The transferable finding is therefore a stage-dependent decision hierarchy: chemistry primarily governs primary-material burden, route selection governs treatment-stage trade-offs, and material-specific recovery can dominate the closed-loop outcome.