With the rapid development of China’s new energy industry, the use of lithium-ion batteries has increased sharply, and the demand for battery cathode metals such as nickel, cobalt, and manganese has also increased rapidly. Scrapped ceramic saggars that are used to produce the cathode materials of lithium-ion batteries contain large amounts of nickel, cobalt, and manganese compounds; thus, recycling these saggars has high economic value and ecological significance. In this paper, the emergy method is used to analyze the ecological benefits of the typical Ni–Co-containing saggar recycling process in China. This paper constructs an ecoefficiency evaluation index for industrial systems based on emergy analysis to analyze the recycling of nickel and cobalt saggars. The ecological benefits are analyzed, and the following conclusions are drawn. (1) The Ni–Co-containing saggar recycling production line has good economic and ecological benefits. (2) The process has room for improvement in the energy use efficiency and clean energy use of the crystallization process and the efficiency of chemical use in the cascade separation and purification process. This study also establishes a set of emergy analysis methods and indicator system for the evaluation of the ecological benefit of the recycling industry, which can provide a reference for the evaluation of the eco-economic benefit of similar recycling industry processes.

Scrapped saggars, used for the calcination of the cathode materials of lithium-ion batteries, contain large amounts of nickel, cobalt and manganese compounds, which have high economic value and significance to the ecological environment if recycled. This paper uses the life cycle assessment method to evaluate the environmental impact of the recycling process, compares its impact intensity with that of the direct disposal of Ni-Co-containing saggars and the production of corresponding products with alternative processes, and then compares the impact of each process. Sensitivity analysis of each material input and output item is carried out to find whether the input or output item that has a greater impact on the environment. The results show the following: (1) the environmental impact of the recovery of Ni-Co-containing saggars is much lower than that of equivalent products produced by alternative production methods, and the weighted person equivalent is only 14.5% of the alternative process; (2) from the perspective of processes, the crystallization and leaching processes demonstrate the greatest impact; and (3) among all input and output items, the sulfuric acid input in the reduction and leaching process, the potassium carbonate and steam input in the crystallization process, the potassium carbonate and potassium hydroxide input in the cascade separation process, and the ammonia input in the purification process are the items with the greatest environmental impact, accounting for 86.05% of the overall environmental impact sensitivity and becoming the focus of future process improvement.