Advances in Intelligent Regeneration of Cathode Materials for Sustainable Lithium-Ion Batteries

Explosively increased market penetration of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) in electric vehicles, consumer electronics, and stationary energy storage devices has recently aroused new concerns on nonrenewable metal resources and environmental pollution because of the forthcoming wave of retired popularized LIBs. Recycling the retired LIBs in an environmentally sustainable and cost-effective way thus becomes much urgent and imperative. As a preferable route, the direct regeneration strategy has been innovatively proposed to repair degraded cathode materials in retired LIBs under non-destructive conditions, which exhibits tremendous superiority compared to conventional metallurgical method that just emphasizes the recovery of target metal elements. Nevertheless, the development of direct regeneration methods for degraded cathode materials is still in infancy, and there remain many scientific and technological obstructions to conquer. It is even absent in the thorough summaries and assessments of this kind of avenue so far. In this review, the current states of various direct regeneration approaches from the regenerative processes, principles, merits, and challenges aspects are summarized, highlighting the extraordinary importance in constructing the really-green closed loop industry for future sustainable energy and, more significantly, in turn providing profound insights into rationally designing more advanced regeneration approaches at the industrial scale.

Automated summary

The explosive increase in the market penetration of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) has raised concerns about nonrenewable metal resources and environmental pollution due to the upcoming wave of retired LIBs. Recycling retired LIBs in an environmentally sustainable and cost-effective way has become urgent. The direct regeneration strategy, which repairs degraded cathode materials in retired LIBs, shows great superiority compared to conventional metallurgical methods. However, there are still scientific and technological obstacles to overcome in the development of direct regeneration methods. This review summarizes the current states of various direct regeneration approaches and highlights their importance in constructing a truly green closed loop industry for future sustainable energy.