Convergence of AI, Data, and Robotics in Circular Manufacturing: The Circular TwAIn Platform for the Li-Ion Traction Batteries Value Chain

In recent years, artificial intelligence has been one of the most promising innovation frontiers of manufacturing, especially when integrated into broader architectures such as digital twin simulations or data spaces. The European Union wisely intercepted this trend by providing adequate resources to worthy R&D clusters to accelerate the TRL scale-up on this topic. One of the instruments used was the HORIZON-CL4-2021-TWIN-TRANSITION-01-07 “Artificial Intelligence for sustainable, agile manufacturing” call, which generated the Circular TwAIn project (GA ID: 101,058,585). The Circular TwAIn platform has been validated through its customization for (among others) the Li-ion e-mobility batteries circular value chain. The concept behind the Circular TwAIn Battery Pilot is to overcome the current value chain by integrating innovative circular economy nodes of the following framework: the collection by transport and logistics operators of the E-mobility battery systems which reach their end-of-life; a preliminary tests of the battery reusability without any manipulation to directly reuse them in automotive or stationary domains; the disassembly and test at module and cell level of the battery packs whose direct reuse is not applicable; the reuse of suitable modules and cells in reassembly of second life batteries; the recycling of not suitable batteries to recover the raw materials. This paper presents the most valuable results originated from the batteries value chain adoption of the Circular TwAIn platform. Its final scope is not only to photograph the successful project execution but to highlight the most promising exploitable results both for market scale-up and for further R&I development.