Research Progress on Green Recycling and Regeneration Technology of Waste Lithium Battery Cathode Materials

Hanbing Duan

doi:10.54691/nr6hm195

Authors

Hanbing Duan

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.54691/nr6hm195

Keywords:

Waste Lithium Batteries; Cathode Materials; Green Recycling; Regeneration Technology; Resource Utilization.

Abstract

The large-scale development of new energy vehicles and energy storage industry has driven the continuous growth of demand for lithium batteries, and waste lithium batteries have entered the stage of centralized retirement. According to the forecast of China Commerce Industry Research Institute in 2024, the retired volume of power batteries in China will reach 1.04 million tons by 2025. The cathode materials of waste lithium batteries contain valuable metals such as lithium, cobalt, and nickel. Disorderly disposal not only causes resource loss, but also soil and air pollution due to heavy metal leakage and electrolyte volatilization. Green recycling and regeneration technology is the core path to achieve the coordinated development of resource recycling and ecological environmental protection. Currently, the industry has formed three mainstream technology systems: pyrometallurgical, hydrometallurgical, and direct regeneration. After technical optimization, The lithium recovery rate of low-temperature pyrometallurgical process exceeds 60%; The green hydrometallurgical process has been industrialized and verified, with a lithium recovery rate of 96.5% and a comprehensive recovery rate of 99.6% for cobalt, nickel, and manganese; Direct regeneration technology can achieve crystal structure repair of cathode materials, and the performance of regenerated products approaches that of native materials. This article combines the characteristics of cathode materials and the urgency of recycling, summarizes the research progress of three major green technologies, analyzes the optimization results of processes, reagents, and equipment, explores the bottlenecks of industry technology and industrial development, looks forward to the trend of low-carbon, high-value, and fully closed-loop development, and provides reference for the research and application of related technologies.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

[1] Fan, J., Luo, H., Wang, T., & Dai, S. (2024). Progress in direct recycling of spent lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide (NMC) cathodes. Energy Storage Materials, 73, 103813.

[2] Zhao, T., Choi, Y., Wu, C., Zhang, Z., Wang, C., Liu, D., ... & Li, W. (2024). A review on direct regeneration of spent lithium iron phosphate: From waste to wealth. Science of The Total Environment, 957, 177748.

[3] Siyu, G., Enhua, D., Bingguo, L., Chao, Y., Yifan, N., Guangxiong, J., ... & Libo, Z. (2024). Eco-friendly closed-loop recycling of nickel, cobalt, manganese, and lithium from spent ternary lithium-ion battery cathodes. Separation and Purification Technology, 348, 127771.

[4] Zhang, X., Cai, L., Fan, E., Lin, J., Wu, F., Chen, R., & Li, L. (2021). Recovery valuable metals from spent lithium-ion batteries via a low-temperature roasting approach: Thermodynamics and conversion mechanism. Journal of Hazardous Materials Advances, 1, 100003.

[5] Liu, F., Peng, C., Ma, Q., Wang, J., Zhou, S., Chen, Z., ... & Lundström, M. (2021). Selective lithium recovery and integrated preparation of high-purity lithium hydroxide products from spent lithium-ion batteries. Separation and Purification Technology, 259, 118181.

[6] Yao, Y., Zhu, M., Zhao, Z., Tong, B., Fan, Y., & Hua, Z. (2018). Hydrometallurgical processes for recycling spent lithium-ion batteries: a critical review. ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering, 6(11), 13611-13627.

[7] Lei, S., Sun, W., & Yang, Y. (2022). Solvent extraction for recycling of spent lithium-ion batteries. Journal of Hazardous Materials, 424, 127654.

[8] Lu, Y., Peng, K., & Zhang, L. (2022). Sustainable recycling of electrode materials in spent Li-ion batteries through direct regeneration processes. Acs Es&T Engineering, 2(4), 586-605.

[9] Song, X., Hu, T., Liang, C., Long, H. L., Zhou, L., Song, W., ... & Liu, J. W. (2017). Direct regeneration of cathode materials from spent lithium iron phosphate batteries using a solid phase sintering method. RSC advances, 7(8), 4783-4790.

[10] Xu, P., Tan, D. H., Jiao, B., Gao, H., Yu, X., & Chen, Z. (2023). A materials perspective on direct recycling of lithium‐ion batteries: principles, challenges and opportunities. Advanced Functional Materials, 33(14), 2213168.