The expected large growth in electric mobility is an opportunity for the whole batteryBattery value chain, but also poses challenges, such as requiring a very large amount of critical raw materials, with nickelNickel, cobaltCobalt, and lithiumLithium in particular. Over the next decade, increasingly larger amounts of batteriesBattery from electric vehiclesElectric Vehicles (EVs) will reach their end-of-life and significant amounts of productionProductions scraps from batteryBattery manufacturing will be generated. In order to close the loop, developmentDevelopment and industrialization of sustainable battery recyclingBattery recycling flowsheetsFlowsheet is key, so that both productionProductions scrap and end-of-life batteriesBattery can be recycled back to “batteryBattery grade” intermediate products and reduce the need for additional critical raw materials. Standalone battery recyclingBattery recycling flowsheetsFlowsheet are typically categorized in two routes: (1) “pyro-hydro”, a combination of batteryBattery smeltingSmelting in a pyrometallurgical process, followed by further refining of the alloy through hydrometallurgyHydrometallurgy; and (2) “full-hydro”, a combination of (thermo)mechanical pretreatment and further hydrometallurgical refining of the resulting black massBlack mass. We present a technical comparison between both routes and illustrate how the added complexity of a smeltingSmelting operation in the “pyro-hydro” route has the potential to simplify downstream hydrometallurgical refining compared to the “full-hydro” route. We will show how expectations and specifications for “batteryBattery grade” intermediate products are an important parameter when assessing strengths and weaknesses of both routes.