Sustainable Battery Management in the Age of Electromobility

The rapid spread of electric vehicles offers numerous opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but also creates new and complex challenges for the automotive industry, particularly in terms of battery life cycle management. Electric cars are currently powered mostly by lithium-ion batteries, which rely on critical raw materials such as lithium, cobalt, nickel, and manganese. These resources are limited, and their extraction often involves energy-intensive and polluting mining processes that can have a serious impact on soil, water resources, and local communities. As demand for electric vehicles grows worldwide, so does the pressure on the sustainability of raw material supplies. The efficient recycling of batteries plays a key role in solving these problems. Recycling not only reduces the demand for primary raw materials, but also reduces waste and contributes to lowering the environmental footprint of electromobility. The study provides a comprehensive overview of the methods currently used to recycle electric vehicle batteries. The most common technologies include pyrometallurgical processes, which recover metals through high-temperature smelting, hydrometallurgical methods, which use chemical solutions to extract valuable materials, and direct recycling, which aims to reuse individual battery components directly. Each solution has its own advantages and limitations in terms of efficiency, cost, environmental safety, and industrial scalability. The study also pays special attention to new, innovative approaches. Automated dismantling technologies, for example, can make dismantling processes safer and faster, while reducing risks to human health. Finally, the regulatory environment and industry practices also play a key role in ensuring the long-term sustainability of battery recycling and the supply chain. The aim of the study is to contribute to the development of a circular automotive industry and to support the spread of sustainable battery management from both a technological and industrial perspective.