Circular economy & technology
Hydrometallurgical Recycling
Metal recovery using aqueous chemistry — leaching, purification, and selective recovery — the lower-energy route for recycling lithium-ion batteries.
Definition
Hydrometallurgical recycling is the recovery of metals from waste streams using water-based chemical processes: leaching dissolves target metals from shredded material (such as battery "black mass") into solution, purification steps such as solvent extraction and precipitation remove impurities, and the metals are then recovered as salts or metal. Compared with pyrometallurgical smelting it operates at lower temperatures, with lower energy use and emissions and higher recovery of materials such as lithium.
References
process description
comparative performance
Overview
What it means
As batteries, electronics, and other metal-rich wastes multiply, how we recover critical minerals matters as much as whether we do. Pyrometallurgy is robust but energy-intensive and loses lithium and manganese to slag; hydrometallurgy can recover over 90 per cent of cobalt, nickel, and lithium at battery-grade purity, making closed-loop battery supply chains technically credible.
Trade-offs include chemical reagents, effluent management, and process complexity.
How it is used
The term anchors battery-recycling regulation (EU Battery Regulation recycling-efficiency targets), critical-minerals strategy, and circular-economy technology assessment.
Why it matters
Electrification shifts environmental pressure from fuels to minerals; hydrometallurgy is a key technology for closing that loop.
Review
Public comments appear only after editor acceptance. Draft comments stay in the review queue.
Reviewers choose the definition or an overview paragraph, leave a comment or replacement, and attach evidence or a source link.
Editors compare reviewer cards side by side. AI may help find agreement, conflicts, unsupported claims and possible source issues.
Only an editor-accepted synthesis changes the public page. Reviewer identities are shown only with consent and an editorial decision to attribute them.
Submitted reviews stay private until an editor decides whether to accept and attribute them.
Contribute to this entry
Help improve this definition
Your contribution is private while it is checked. Nothing changes on this page unless an editor accepts it.
Loading verified endorsements… Endorsements are not votes and never determine publication.
Endorse this definition
Endorse the exact version shown here. This is not a vote, and publication remains an editorial decision.
Review board
Comment on a specific line. Each reviewer stays separate until an editor accepts a merged draft.
Each person comments on the definition or overview in their own draft card, with role, evidence and suggested wording kept together.
AI can compare comments against the current text, flag conflicting claims, surface missing evidence and identify where reviewers agree.
An editor merges compatible suggestions into a draft change, checks sources, records disagreements and decides what can be published.