A Critical Review on the Recycling Strategy of Lithium Iron Phosphate from Electric Vehicles

Abstract

Electric vehicles (EVs) are one of the most promising decarbonization solutions to develop a carbon‐negative economy. The increasing global storage of EVs brings out a large number of power batteries requiring recycling. Lithium iron phosphate (LFP) is one of the first commercialized cathodes used in early EVs, and now gravimetric energy density improvement makes LFP with low cost and robustness popular again in the market. Developments in LFP recycling techniques are in demand to manage a large portion of the EV batteries retired both today and around ten years later. In this review, first the operation and degradation mechanisms of LFP are revisited aiming to identify entry points for LFP recycling. Then, the current LFP recycling methods, from the pretreatment of the retired batteries to the regeneration and recovery of the LFP cathode are summarized. The emerging direct recovery technology is highlighted, through which both raw material and the production cost of LFP can be recovered. In addition, the current issues limiting the development of the LIBs recycling industry are presented and some ideas for future research are proposed. This review provides the theoretical basis and insightful perspectives on developing new recycling strategies by outlining the whole‐life process of LFP.

Direct Regenerating Cathode Materials from Spent Lithium‐Ion Batteries

“…[48] With the booming of the EV market, the effective and environmentally-friendly recycling and regeneration of LFP become urgent. [49] Decades of studies disclose that the degradation of LFP cathode resulted mainly from Li inventory loss [16,50] and Li-Fe anti-site defect. [20a] Aimed to address these key issues, several methods have been proposed to repair LFP cathode including solid-state methods, [28] hydrothermal technique, [34b,51] electrochemical relithiation, [16,44] chemical relithiation methods, [47] molten salts methods, [40] and innovative methods.…”

Green and efficient method for the realization of full-component recovery of LiFePO4 black powder

“…23 Furthermore, it is not possible to achieve accurate electrochemical performance consistency for LiFePO 4 black powders with different usage levels, leading to the application difficulties of regenerated LiFePO 4 material. 24–26…”

Review on the Binders for Sustainable High‐Energy‐Density Lithium Ion Batteries: Status, Solutions, and Prospects

“…[ 10,11 ] In this context, the urgent demand of modern society is to develop high‐energy‐density LIBs with desirable sustainability. [ 12 ]…”

“…[10,11] In this context, the urgent demand of modern society is to develop high-energy-density LIBs with desirable sustainability. [12] The innovation of battery materials is instrumental in achieving sustainable high-energy-density LIBs. [13] For example, electroactive materials attract the most intensiveresearch enthusiasm because they potentially offer one order of magnitude higher energy density than conventional LIBs.…”