Circular Economy and the Fate of Lithium Batteries: Second Life and Recycling

Abstract

The lithium-ion battery (LIB) was first introduced in the market by Sony in 1991 and A&T Battery in 1992 [1] to power new portable electronics tools. The first generation of LIBs used a LiCoO 2based cathode and a carbonaceous anode, meeting the main requirements for portable electronics, i.e., gravimetric volumetric and energy densities at around 100 Wh kg À1 and 250 Wh dm À3 , respectively, as well as safety. [2] In just 10 years, LIBs reached a market share of 95% with about 10 GWh of installed energy and a corresponding business of about 10$ billion per year. [3] Later, the introduction of new alternative chemistries (LiMn 2 O 4 , LiFePO 4 , graphite) [4] and the optimization of the battery pack brought the energy density to over 200 Wh kg À1 and 350 Wh dm À3 . These improvements led to the implementation of LIBs in the automotive sector, [5] where their actual impact in the electrical vehicles (EV) market has been growing exponentially in the past years, [3] and it is driving the continuous and renewed interest toward rechargeable batteries. The future of LIBs, indeed, seems even more brilliant and analysts agree that the penetration of LIBs in the automotive market will lead to an estimated demand >500 GWh energy production in 2025 and >2000 GWh by 2030 (Figure 1a) at the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 30% in the next decade. [6] The success of LIBs is also favored by cost reduction, which in turn accelerates their penetration into the automotive industry.

Sorting, characterisation, environmentally friendly recycling and re-use of components from End-of-Life 18650 Li ion batteries

“…Hydrometallurgy uses strong mineral acids and reducing agents to leach the metals from the black mass, allowing the recovery of more elements (i.e., Li) compared to pyrometallurgy 1,6,7 . New concepts are necessary for reducing environmental impacts, being potentially adaptable to all the batteries chemistries and increasing process efficiency 7 .…”

“…Considering that worldwide governments are investing in electric cars, these capacities are inevitably expected to grow, foreseeing a global sale of electrical vehicles of more than 26 million in 2030. This trend makes ever more urgent the boosting of battery recycling for several reasons; the most important ones are the safe management of a huge amount of wastes including many toxic components, and the securing of a healthy supply chain 1 . The frequent instability of the geopolitical events, in fact, is impacting the supply of critical raw materials used in the LIBs manufacturing (above all Li, Co Ni, graphite, but also rare earths) favouring the soaring of the commodities prices.…”

Lithium and Cobalt Recovery from Lithium‐Ion Battery Waste via Functional Ionic Liquid Extraction for Effective Battery Recycling

“…Moreover, new technologies for sustainable and efficient recycling must be developed. Up to now, in fact, only a fraction of EoL‐LIBs has been collected and recycled through highly energetic processes mainly based on pyrometallurgical approaches (high temperature treatments with T >1000 °C) followed by hydrometallurgical steps using strong mineral acids [4–7] . The result of these steps is the partial recovery of some of the metals (Co, Cu, Al, Ni), while organic components and light elements (Li, F) are inevitably lost.…”

“…In particular, soft hydrometallurgy exploiting organic acids and reducing agents, [8][9][10] solvometallurgy based on ionic liquids and deep eutectic solvents, [11][12][13][14][15] and biometallurgy [16][17][18][19] were presented demonstrating the possibility to fully degraded the mass derived from the pretreatment of the EoL-LIBs, and specifically the cathodic components. [7,16,[20][21][22] In this case, the product of all the proposed treatments is a complex solution of different metals and chemical species, and further steps need to be implemented to separate and recover the metals of interest. Far less attention was devoted to this topic and often the steps presented in literature as proof-of-concept for the recovery of target metals (generally Li and Co) require many steps, huge amounts of salts and water with significant production of byproducts and wastewater.…”

Sacrificial Catalyst of Carbothermal-Shock-Synthesized 1T-MoS2 Layers for Ultralong-Lifespan Seawater Battery

“…Rechargeable batteries are a vital component of various emerging applications, owing to their superior energy-storage characteristics. − In particular, the increasing growth rate of EV sales has considerably amplified the use of Li-ion batteries (LIBs); this has been directly correlated by LIB market trends, which indicate that the global cumulative cell-manufacturing capacities of LIBs should increase from ∼500 GWh in 2025 to approximately 1500 GWh in 2030 to satisfy the battery demand. ,− However, Lia rare-earth element ranked 33rd in terms of abundance (0.0017% of the Earth’s crust)is a high-risk raw material that is typically imported from certain geographically concentrated regions. ,,, …”