Progresses in Sustainable Recycling Technology of Spent Lithium‐Ion Batteries

Abstract

The demand for sustainable green energy and quality of life has become more urgent as modern society and industry move forward at full speed. This has further promoted the shift of society to environmental and sustainable development. [1,2] The emergence of LIBs has greatly mitigated the major petroleum-fuel pollution and energy crises, and is also a good replacement for certain new energy sources, with uncertain characteristics and intermittent properties including tidal energy, solar, hydroelectric, nuclear, and wind power developed. [3] In the 1990s, Sony commercialized LIBs successfully. [1] Using their unique advances, including high power density, no storage, small size, light weight, long cycle life, and low self-discharge rates, LIBs have so far gathered enormous market share following 30 years of development and progress in the sector. [1,4] It is widely used in electronic consumer, medical, electric vehicle, the industry, aerospace and defense, power storage, and other industries. [5] Moreover, the battery market of lithium-ion is currently undergoing major changes and LIBs are expected to grow over hundreds of gigawatt hours per year worldwide in the next five years and to account for 70% of the battery rechargeable market in 2025. [6] The global demand for lithium batteries in 2018 is 231 326 billion Yuan and the volume of shipments is 146.38 GWh, according to the prediction of the relevant research institutions of the industry. The demand for the market in lithium batteries is going to reach 694 265 billion yuan in particular, with a market capacity of 439.32 GWh in 2025. Driven by the continuous electrification of the auto industry, LIBs have reached millions of trading volumes as the main driver of electric vehicles and hybrid vehicles will continue to grow in the future. [7,8] The global market for LIBs is estimated to be around US $40 billion by 2025, and more than a third is expected to come from the hybrid and electric vehicle markets. [9] In the face of these massive volumes of LIBs, all demands have promoted the production of a large number of LIBs, which have led to large production shortages, in particular metal resources such as lithium and cobalt. [10,11] LIBs in electric vehicles have a life span of only 5-10 years, while small electronic products have a lifetime almost 3 years. [12,13] Therefore, in the face of the explosive growth and of such a substantial amount of rechargeable LIBs, generous LIBs will be scrapped in the immediate future. It is speculated that China alone can produce 500 000 metric tons of used LIBs in 2020, and the world is expected to process 11 million tons of spent LIBs by 2030. [12,14] However, the high metal content of waste LIB is an important metal resource, especially because global reserves are limited to approximately 62 million tons of Li and 145 million tons of Co. The supply of these raw materials from natural resources will not be able to meet future demand.

Flux upcycling of spent NMC 111 to nickel-rich NMC cathodes in reciprocal ternary molten salts

“…Along with the scaled production of LIBs, end-of-life (EOL) LIBs are causing serious environmental contaminations due to their hazardous components, such as toxic lithium compounds, heavy metals, and electrolytes ( Wang et al., 2020 ; Duarte Castro et al., 2021 ; Bai et al., 2020 ). Recovering materials especially high-value cathodes from EOL LIBs not only relieves the pressure on the raw material supply chain but also minimizes environmental pollution of EOL LIBs ( Mossali et al., 2020 ; Chen et al., 2019 ; Du et al., 2021 ). Most of current facilities and processes to recover EOL LIBs are to recover valuable metals, especially cobalt by pyrometallurgical and hydrometallurgical recycling methods ( Ciez and Whitacre, 2019 ; Mansur et al., 2021 ; Atia et al., 2019 ; Velázquez-Martínez et al., 2019 ).…”

A sustainable strategy for spent Li-ion battery regeneration: microwave-hydrothermal relithiation complemented with anode-revived graphene to construct a LiFePO4/MWrGO cathode material

“…LiFePO 4 (hereinaer, LFP) batteries have been widely employed as the power source in electric tools, hybrid/full electric vehicles, and grid energy storage, owing to their high thermal stability, long cycle life, and low cost. These advantages have contributed to their ever-expanding production, 1,2 catering to a market demand of approximately 439 GW h. 3 According to estimates, millions of tons of spent LFP battery packs are discarded aer 3-10 years of service life. 4,5 Unfortunately, in contrast to the ery situation at the upstream manufacturing end, most of these LFP batteries have been excluded from the Li-ion battery recycling market owing to the low revenue from Li recycling alone.…”

Stability Optimization Strategies of Cathode Materials for Aqueous Zinc Ion Batteries: A Mini Review

“…In the field of new energy storage, lithium-ion batteries have been widely used because of their high energy density and wide working voltage ( Park et al, 2021 ; Xia et al, 2021 ; Feng et al, 2022 ). However, the scarcity of lithium resources increases the cost of lithium batteries, and the majority of the organic electrolyte used are poisonous or flammable, reducing the safety of lithium batteries ( Li et al, 2021a ; Du et al, 2021 ; Hou et al, 2021 ). Comparatively, zinc metal has the advantages of non-toxic, low cost, and redox potential, which is more suitable for aqueous electrolytes ( Yao et al, 2021 ).…”