Sorting, Characterization, Environmentally Friendly Recycling, and Reuse of Components from End-of-Life 18650 Li Ion Batteries

The rapid growth in demand for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) is posing challenges in the management of end-of-life (EoL) systems and the supply of critical raw materials (CRMs), especially lithium, cobalt, and nickel. Such challenges can be addressed by collecting and recycling spent LIBs through economically and environmentally sustainable processes and by enabling the transition to a circular economy vision based on the use of secondary raw materials. These processes involve not only the metallurgic approaches to recover the critical metals, but also the pretreatment approaches that are crucial to enhance the recovery efficiency of other valuable materials (e.g., graphite, fluorinated compounds, binders, electrolyte). Herein, pretreatment processes ranging from the disassembling, opening, and sorting to the component separation, collection, and recovery, are described for the EoL 18650-type commercial LIB. A closed loop of eco-friendly recycling to fully recover the composite cathode, i.e., the cathode active material (CAM), the fluorinated binder, and the conductive carbon, as well as the separator, is presented. The recovery approach is based on green solvents and is designed to limit water consumption. The recovered materials are used to assemble a new cell, and the electrochemical characterization is used to evaluate the effective feasibility of the whole recycling process.

Automated summary

The rapid growth in demand for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) poses challenges in EoL management and CRM supply. Collecting and recycling spent LIBs through sustainable processes and transitioning to a circular economy vision can address these challenges. These processes involve metallurgic approaches to recover critical metals and pretreatment approaches to enhance the recovery efficiency of valuable materials.