SungEel HiTech, a Korean battery recycling company, is the only company in Korea to possess a batch process for recycling waste batteries. The entire process of extracting battery raw materials with 99.99% purity from waste batteries is conducted.

SungEel HiTech’s waste battery recycling process is divided into two parts: a physical ‘pre-treatment process’ and a chemical ‘post-treatment process’. The battery pretreatment process discharges the power remaining in the waste battery and creates a cathode material powder called ‘black powder’ by removing impurities. The cathode material is a key material that determines battery performance and is a chemical combination of lithium, nickel, cobalt, and manganese.

In the battery post-process, SungEel HiTech's core technology is to separate black powder that is chemically combined with raw materials. Manganese, cobalt, nickel, and lithium are extracted in that order. ‘Wet process using solvent extraction method’ is used.

First, black powder is dissolved in the leaching drug. Then, add the manganese extract developed by SungEel HiTech to the drug dissolved in black powder and mix. During this process, manganese attaches to the extractant.

Over time, the extractant in which manganese is dissolved and the remaining drug in which cobalt, Ikel, and lithium are dissolved are separated. Only the extractant containing manganese is removed. By repeating the above-mentioned process using each raw material extractant, the battery raw materials can be separated one by one. It takes about 15 days to extract all the raw materials from the waste battery.
 

“The basic composition of the initial cathode material was lithium + cobalt, but we discovered that performance was improved when nickel and manganese, which have similar properties to cobalt, were used together. Lithium + cobalt, nickel, and manganese are the basic cathode materials for electric vehicle batteries,” said Jung, Executive Vice President of the Korean battery recycling company.

A Korean battery recycling company SungEel HiTech sells raw material extractants in liquid form or dried and sold as powder. Clients who manufacture precursors (the previous step of cathode materials) using purchased raw materials purchase powder and dissolve it in a solution. Liquid raw material extracts have less concentrated content and are heavier than powders, making them unsuitable for export, and powdered raw materials are shipped overseas.

From 2025, waste batteries from electric vehicles are expected to pour out. In addition, as regulations mandating the use of waste battery raw materials are scheduled to be introduced in major electric vehicle markets such as Europe and the United States, big corporations are also carrying out battery recycling projects.

SungEel HiTech, a Korean battery recycling company, expects that once the 'Indiana Recycling Park' is completed, it will be able to produce core battery materials to supply up to 100,000 electric vehicles per year from battery-processed scrap and used batteries.