Recovery of Cathode Materials from Spent Lithium-ion Batteries

L. KLIMA; A. VERGALITO; M. S. ALVAREZ; M. G ORTIZ

Mar del Plata

Congreso; 34th Topical Meeting International Society of of the Electrochemistry; 2023

INTEMA- Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata

As a device forenergy storage, lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) have been considered as one of thebest alternatives for sustainable transport in electric vehicle industry due totheir attractive electrochemical properties (e.g. high energy density, longservice life, modest size and weight). However, these batteries will eventuallyflow into waste stream after several years of service lifetime and a hugequantity of spent LIBs will be generated annually from their extensiveapplications in portable electronics and electric vehicles [1,2].With theincreasing demand of LIBs, a significant amount of spent cathode materials thatcontain valuable metals, i.e. Li, Ni, Co, Mn, have been produced. Once spentcathode materials cannot be managed properly, it would become a serious threatto environment. Conversely, spent cathode materials are also secondaryresources that contain critical and valuable metals. LiNi1−x−yCoxMnyO2cathode materials can be regenerated through metallurgical treatment followedby co-precipitation and solid-state sintering.In this work, the cathode materials of Li-ionbatteries used from commercial technologies will be recovered, characterized toidentify their morphology and composition and, from there, adapt them for theirnew use as cathode material, for the potential recovery of these. The structuresand morphology of the recovered materials have been studied by XRD, SEM andelectrochemical techniques.