Environmentally friendly automated line for recovering aluminium and lithium iron phosphate components of spent lithium-iron phosphate batteries

Abstract

Lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries contain metals, toxic electrolytes, organic chemicals and plastics that can lead to serious safety and environmental problems when they are improperly disposed of. The published literature on recovering spent LFP batteries mainly focuses on policy-making and conceptual design. The production line of recovering spent LFP batteries and its detailed operation are rarely reported. A set of automatic line without negative impact to the environment for recycling spent LFP batteries at industrial scale was investigated in this study. It includes crushing, pneumatic separation, sieving, and poison gas treatment processes. The optimum retaining time of materials in the crusher is 3 minutes. The release rate is the highest when the load of the impact crusher is 800 g. An air current separator (ACS) was designed to separate LFP from aluminium (Al) foil and LFP powder mixture. Movement behaviour of LFP powder and Al foil in the ACS were analysed, and the optimized operation parameter (35.46 m/s) of air current speed was obtained through theoretical analysis and experiments. The weight contents of an Al foil powder collector from vibrating screen-3 and LFP powder collector from bag-type dust collector are approximately 38.7% and 52.4%, respectively. The economic cost of full manual dismantling is higher than the recovery production line. This recycling system provides a feasible method for recycling spent LFP batteries.

Separation and Recovery of Cathode Materials from Spent Lithium Iron Phosphate Batteries for Sustainability: A Comprehensive Review

“…51,52 On a different note, LFP as a granular compound can be effectively isolated from the curled Al foil after screening or sieving. 53 Georgi-Maschler et al used a ball mill and a disintegrator to crush SLIBs, followed by classifying and separating the ground powders adopting a vibrating screen, a drum separator, and a zigzag classifier (Figure 4a). 54 This process enables the production of three different products with varying metal contents, encompassing the Fe−Ni fraction, Al fraction, and electrode foil portion (Figure 4b).…”

“…Typically, cathode materials are attached to the surface of Al foil in the form of a single-layer coating . During the process of mechanical crushing, due to the flexibility and curling characteristic of Al foil, applying mechanical force causes the Al foil to deform, which is conducive to achieve an effective physical separation from cathode materials. , On a different note, LFP as a granular compound can be effectively isolated from the curled Al foil after screening or sieving …”

Advanced Solid-State Electrolysis for Green and Efficient Spent LiFePO4 Cathode Material Recycling: Prototype Reactor Tests

“…The development of the electric vehicle industry is being vigorously encouraged in China. , China is increasingly reliant on electric vehicles, and the pace of electric vehicle development in China has staggeringly shifted from 29.8 GW h in 2015 to 79.2 GW h in 2020 . Due to lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries having outstanding thermal stability, high safety performance, excellent cycling performance, and low material cost, they are widely used in electric vehicles and hybrid vehicles. − However, after 500–2000 cycles of charge and discharge, the internal structure of the LFP batteries will change irreversibly, blocking the channel of Li + diffusion, and ultimately leading to the decommission of LFP batteries. − The global electric vehicle inventory is expected to reach 145 million by 2030. The number of the spent LFP batteries will exceed 11 million tons .…”