Minimizing the energy consumption and expanding the usage of renewable material in the recovery of spent lithium ion batteries (LIBs) are significant for exploring more sustainable recycling approaches. Herein, we report a biomass carbothermic reduction approach to selectively recycle Li and Co from spent LIBs at a low temperature of 673 K. Pine sawdust (PS) was selected as the sample to provide reducing gas and carbon during the pyrolysis. During the reduction process, the PS-derived reducing gas and charcoal codrove the conversion of LiCoO 2 to Co/CoO and Li 2 CO 3 , and over 94% of Li and 97% of Co were recovered. The synergistic effect of carbon and reducing gas is key to achieving the transformation process at a lower temperature than the common carbothermic reduction. Economic and environmental analysis based on the EverBatt model shows that this strategy reduces energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, thereby increasing potential profit. Overall, this paper provides a green method to recycle spent LIBs via waste biomass with minimized secondary wastes.

Efficiently recycling end-of-life lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) has been pursued in recent years to reduce energy consumption and secondary waste. In this paper, silicon tetrachloride (SiCl4)-assisted roasting was developed to recover LiCl, CoCl2, and Co3O4 from spent lithium cobalt oxide (LiCoO2) batteries. At 500 °C and a SiCl4/LiCoO2 mass ratio of 3:1, 95.6% of Co was recovered as CoCl2 and 98.4% of Li was recovered as LiCl. When the mass ratio was 0.7:1, 24.6% of Co was in the form of CoCl2, and the remaining was Co3O4, accompanied by the Li leaching rate of 95.6%. LiCoO2 resynthesized from recycled Li2CO3 and Co3O4 exhibits good electrochemical performance, with a capacity of over 142.5 mAh g–1 at 1C and a capacity retention rate of 93% after 100 cycles. According to the EverBatt model analysis, the SiCl4-assisted roasting method exhibits lower energy consumption and greenhouse gas emission, as well as more considerable revenue. Since SiCl4 is a byproduct of the polysilicon production process, the SiCl4-assisted chlorination at medium temperatures not only reduces the cost, but also achieves the disposal of SiCl4 and spent LIBs in a green manner.

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Spent lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) have gradually become an indispensable raw material to regenerate new LIBs and close the materials loop. Hence, exploring efficient recovery methods with minimized recovery cost, chemical...

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