Technoeconomic Assessment of Electric Vehicle Battery Disassembly -- Challenges and Opportunities from a Robotics Perspective

The rapid shift towards electric vehicles (EVs) demands effective end-of-life strategies for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), necessitating a critical examination of recycling methodologies, particularly the disassembly process. This study presents a detailed technoeconomic analysis of EV battery disassembly, focusing on incorporating robotics to address prevalent challenges and capitalize on emerging opportunities. We conduct a comprehensive assessment of the variability in battery design and the existing disassembly procedures, emphasizing the labour-intensive nature of manual disassembly and the resulting economic and environmental burdens. By examining the disassembly of the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV battery pack, we identify the most labour and cost-intensive components and introduce a structured approach to evaluate the feasibility of automating disassembly tasks. Our proposed taxonomy classifies tasks based on their potential for automation, with findings indicating that 57\% of pack-to-module (P2M) disassembly tasks are readily automatable, and an additional 24% can be automated with minimal human intervention. Comparative analysis between manual and robotic disassembly highlights that automation can reduce disassembly time and costs by nearly 47% while maintaining operational efficiencies (efficiency factor near unity, and slightly higher at 1.05 for module-to-cell processes). This paper contributes significant insights into the sustainable recycling of EV batteries. It proposes a strategic framework for advancing robotic disassembly techniques, paving the way for enhanced scalability and economic viability in automated battery recycling operations.