Retrieving Spent Cathodes from Lithium‐Ion Batteries through Flourishing Technologies

Abstract

Batteries & Supercaps www.batteries-supercaps.org Review doi.org/10.1002/batt.202200418The inherent advancement of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) in electronic gadgets is expanding exponentially, and the ongoing surge of electric vehicles (EVS) in the near future will result in an unprecedented amount of lithium waste. Used cathode materials contain hazardous metal toxic, polymer binder, and electrolytes, posing a serious risk to the environment and public health. For socio-environmental reasons, it is required to recover all valuable metals or to immediately relithiate the used cathode materials by adding suitable salts in the stoichiometric ratio. As the consumption of batteries increases over time in daily life, recycling LIBs will become more and more crucial. Compared to the traditional hydrometallurgical and pyrometallurgical routes, direct recycling technologies can regenerate electrodes without using an intensive energy or chemicals, which saves money and reduces secondary waste. As a result, the authors emphasise direct relithiation methods for spent cathode relithiation, such as hydrothermal, ionothermal, electrochemical, and molten salts. In-depth analysis and discussion are also given to the aforementioned approaches. The deactivation, disintegration, and separation processes used in the physical processing of black mass and other constituents are discussed. We reviewed the obstacles, possible commercialization of technology, and recommendations to the reviewer for the developing ecologically friendly recycling technology in the near future toward the circular economy.

Direct Regenerating Cathode Materials from Spent Lithium‐Ion Batteries

“…The critical point in the direct regeneration of cathodes from spent LIBs is to restore the crystalline structure of the cathode without completely disrupting the chemical bonds of the cathodes. [ 5c,19 ] Several methods have been proposed for regenerating spent cathodes by targeting the primary degradation mechanism of cathode materials. In general, Li vacancy defects are common in cycled cathodes.…”

“…The hydrothermal method has been proved to be another effective method for repairing spent LFP cathodes. [ 5a,54 ] Jia et al. proposed an environmentally friendly method that combines hydrothermal treatment and sintering to repair the spent LFP cathode.…”

“…Therefore, recycling the retired LIBs in a green way paves the way for the sustainable improvement of the LIBs industry and our society. [5] A typical LIB contains negative and positive electrodes, separators, electrolytes, and shells as shown in Figure 2a. The valuable metals, including Li, Co, and Ni, mostly exist in the cathodes.…”

“…Therefore, recycling the retired LIBs in a green way paves the way for the sustainable improvement of the LIBs industry and our society. [ 5 ]…”

Low‐cost porous carbon materials prepared from peanut red peels for novel zinc‐ion hybrid capacitors

“…With the rapid development of electric vehicles, electronic devices, power grids and other industries there is a more urgent need for advanced energy storage devices with higher performance, higher energy storage capacity, lower cost and more environmentally friendly [1–4] . Since the first commercial use of lithium‐ion batteries (LIBs) in 1991, they have been widely used in various electronic products [5–9] . However, their relatively low power density, short service life, high cost, and poor safety also limit their application in some fields requiring high power and long cycle time [10,11] .…”