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A critical review and analysis on the recycling of spent lithium-ion batteries Weiguang Lv, zhonghang Wang, Hongbin Cao, Yong Sun, Yi Zhang, and Zhi H.I. Sun ACS Sustainable Chem. Eng., Just Accepted Manuscript • DOI: 10.1021/ acssuschemeng.7b03811 • Publication Date (Web): 13 Dec 2017 Downloaded from http://pubs.acs.org on December 14, 2017
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A critical review and analysis on the recycling of spent lithium-ion batteries W. Lva,b, Z. Wanga, H. Caoa, Y. Sunc, Y. Zhanga, Z. Suna*
2 a
3
National Engineering Laboratory for Hydrometallurgical Cleaner Production &
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Technology, Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190,
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China b
6 7
c
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
Edith Cowan University School of Engineering, 270 Joondalup Drive Joondalup WA 6027
8 9
Australia *Corresponding author: Z. Sun (
[email protected])
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National Engineering Laboratory for Hydrometallurgical Cleaner Production Technology
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Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences
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Tel: +86 10 82544844
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Fax: +86 10 82544845
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No. 1 Beierjie, Zhongguancun, Beijing, China
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ABSTRACT
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Recycling of spent lithium-ion-batteries (LIBs) has attracted significant attentions in recent
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years due to the increasing demand on corresponding critical metals/materials and growing
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pressure on environmental impact from solid waste disposal. A range of investigations have been
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carried out for recycling spent LIBs to obtain either battery materials or individual compounds. In
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order to enhance effective recovery of materials, physical pretreatment is usually applied to obtain
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different streams of waste materials ensuring efficient separation for further processing.
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Subsequently, a metallurgical process is used to extract metals or separate impurities from a
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specific waste stream so that the recycled materials or compounds can be further prepared by
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incorporating principles of materials engineering. In this review, the current status of spent LIBs
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recycling is summarized in view of the whole recycling process, especially focusing on the
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hydrometallurgy. In addition to understanding different hydrometallurgical technologies including
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acidic leaching, alkaline leaching, chemical precipitation and solvent extraction, the existing
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challenges for process optimization during the recycling are critically analyzed. Besides, the
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energy consumption of different processes is evaluated and discussed. It is expected that this
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research could provide a guideline for improvement of the spent LIBs recycling and this topic can
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be further stimulated for industrial realization.
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KEYWORDS: Spent LIBs; Pretreatment; Recycling; Environmental impact; Hydrometallurgy
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INTRODUCITON
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The rapid growth of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) used in portable electronic devices and
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electric vehicles requires significant amount of metal resources, especially lithium (Li) and cobalt
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(Co).1 According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and the China Industry
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Information Network, nearly 40% of Li and 42.46% Co were consumed in the production of
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batteries in 2014.2, 3 Specifically, the consumption of Co for power batteries has increased to 13.7%
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in 2016, and will hold the trend to 20.3% in 2018, because of the rapid development of electric
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vehicles.4 Meanwhile, the worldwide cobalt and lithium production only increase slightly in recent 2
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years. With current growth rate, a significant pressure is imposed on the supply side of cobalt and
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lithium.5 It is predicted that Co and Li will face serious shortage in the foreseeable future.
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Apart from the above-mentioned resource issues, the environmental and potential safety
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problems caused by spent LIBs are also substantial. If a spent LIB is directly discarded without
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proper treatment, the heavy metals like Co, Ni and Mn would contaminate soil and underground
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water. The electrolyte is easy to react with water to release harmful gas such as hydrogen fluoride
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(HF).6 Furthermore, during the cycle-life-period, Li tends to deposit on the anode due to
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overcharging or other improper usage. The deposited Li can react with water to release hydrogen
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gas (H2) and produce lithium hydroxide (LiOH). The residual electric power tends to cause
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explosion or fire accidents.7 Therefore, effective recycling of spent LIBs in view of the
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environmental and safety challenges is critical to ensure the sustainable development of this field.
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A single methodology is hard to be both cost-effective and environmental-friendly due to the
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complexity of raw materials. Therefore, a combination of physical and chemical approaches is
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widely adopted to recycle spent LIBs. Generally, physical methods are used to enhance the
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efficiency of recycling, and typically include dismantling, crushing, sieving, thermal and
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mechanochemical treatment.8 The chemical methods could be classified into pyrometallurgy and
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hydrometallurgy. In comparison with pyrometallurgical processes that usually undertook at high
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temperature, hydrometallurgical methods have obvious advantages, such as milder reaction
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conditions, more environmental-friendly, higher recovery efficiency of valuable metals especially
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Li.1,
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approaches to process spent LIBs.
9, 10
These advantages make hydrometallurgical methods as preferable and promising
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In this paper, the current status of lithium-ion batteries and recent developed strategies in
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pretreatment and metallurgical processes are systematically addressed, especially focusing on the
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hydrometallurgical processes. Furthermore, the challenges and deficiencies are analyzed and
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discussed. The regulations and legislation concerning spent LIBs management are also reviewed.
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The aim of review is to provide a general guideline of how spent LIBs recycling techniques can be
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improved.
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DEVELOPMENT OF LITHIUM-ION BATTERIES
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At the beginning of 1990s, SONY manufactured the first ever commercial rechargeable LIBs
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in the world, consisting of a carbon anode and a LiCoO2 cathode.11 Since then, LIBs have been
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regarded as the most promising “green battery” for its high energy density, good design flexibility,
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and long lifespan in comparison with other types of batteries.12 To satisfy the further needs from
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the developing battery-powered devices, new type of LIBs have been extensively explored such as
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LiCoO2, LiNiO2, LiFePO4, the lithium nickel cobalt manganese (NCM) and the lithium nickel
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cobalt aluminum (NCA) in recent years. As seen in Figure 1 (a) and (b), the supply risk,
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circulability (CM) and market value of different cathode materials are evaluated based on the data
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from European Commission and Shanghai Metals Market.13-16 It demonstrates that (1) the
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recycling of LiCoO2 and NCM is slightly more important and profitable than other materials due
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to high cobalt content; (2) the high-cost and low circulability metals in the cathode materials are
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gradually replaced by low-cost and high circulability ones with lower supply risks in the last
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decades; (3) to decrease the pressure from supply risk, it is necessary to enhance the circulability
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of Co and research new cathode materials contain metals with little supply risk and high
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circulability. The production of LIBs from 2011 to 2016 remains a fast increase rate and is
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estimated to reach 169.09 GWh in 2018.
17-19
One of the reasons is the rapid development of
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electric vehicles, whose sales remain an excellent increasing in recent years.20 As important
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cathode materials of power battery, NCM, NCA and LiFePO4 will increase accordingly, resulting
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in a large amount of valuable metals such as Ni, Co, Li, awaiting being recycled through the waste
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stream.21 The components of LIBs waste will become much more complex without efficient
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classification and management. Nevertheless, data from the USGS indicated that at most 20% of
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the batteries available for recycling actually were recycled.22 Meanwhile, as the International
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Resources Panel reported that less than 1% lithium from spent LIBs was recycled in the world.23
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Contrast this with the increasing quantity of spent LIBs around the world, which is illustrated in
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Figure 1(c). Figure 1(c) also demonstrated the market revenue of LIBs in the USA from 2013 to
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2024. Besides, it is obvious that a positive correlation exists between the quantity of spent LIBs
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and the market size of LIBs. Therefore, from the market revenue of LIBs, the rising tendency of 4
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spent LIBs could be predicted.24, 25 The recycling of spent LIBs urgently need to be studied to
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establish a more economic and eco-friendly industrial process than current processes.
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115 116 117 118
Figure 1. Supply risk, (a) circulability (CM) and (b) market value of different cathode materials
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based on their metal content; (c) the estimation of spent LIBs in Canada, Mexico and the USA,
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2010-2030 and the market size in North America, USA, China and global world (The supply risk
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is based on the worldwide governance indicator, WGI; the quality of cathode materials only
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considers the quality of metals to evaluate the market value of cathode materials; the metal prices
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are the 1-month average price obtained from Shanghai Metals Market). 13-16, 25, 26
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STATE-OF-THE-ART FOR SPENT LIBS RECYCLING
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The recycling processes of spent LIBs mainly include reuse, repair and recovery, among
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which the recovery process has drawn much attention, and will be introduced in detail in this
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section. In addition, the challenges of recycling processes will be analyzed in discussion aspect.
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The summary of current available treatment approaches is shown in Figure 2. Prior to processing,
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the spent LIBs should be firstly discharged to reduce the existence of Li metal and minimize the
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risk of explosion. A common method is using salt saturated solutions such as NaCl and Na2SO4 to
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discharge spent LIBs.27 The critical downside of this method is the emission of HF directly
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triggered by leakage of electrolyte into water, which is shown in Equation 1.
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LiPF6+H2 O→LiF+POF3+2HF↑
(0)
Spent LIBs Route 1 Route 2
Discharge
Pyrometallurgy
Pretreatment
Alloy(Co, Ni)
Cathode
Cu, Al foil, Plastic
Hydrometallurgy
Reuse
Hydrometallurgy
Recovery metal
136 137
Route 3
Repair
Recovery cathode Recovery metal materials Recovery materials
Reusable products
Figure 2. General flow sheet of spent LIBs treatment processes.
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Afterwards, there are three recycling routes. Route 1 is the recycling or recovery process,
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which is composed of pretreatment (Sometimes, discharging process is also regarded as a
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pretreatment process), pyrometallurgical process and hydrometallurgical process. Route 2 is the
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repairing process. Route 3 is the reusing process, which mainly focuses on reusing Cu, Al foil and
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plastic that could be directly reused after disassembly. The profit of Route 3 largely depends on
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the efficiency of the disassembly process. As for Route 2, the advantage of it is shorting the 6
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recycling route to decrease the loss of valuable metals or materials and increase the profile of
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technologies. The general process is using NMP or other organic agent to separate cathode
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materials from Al foil and then achieves the repairing of spent cathode materials through
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calcination.28-30 It is not cost-effective to respectively recover Fe compounds or Li compounds
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from the spent LiFeO4 through conventional extraction technologies. Through repairing process, a
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green chemical and economic technology could be established.30-32 Additionally, the methods of
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reuse and repair are often ignored, though these processes could be very convenient and
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economical due to theirs short and effective flows.
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Pretreatment method
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To enhance the efficiency of recycling materials, either mechanical or chemical pretreatment
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process is usually applied to make the different waste battery streams ready for subsequent
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processing. The more careful the pretreatment is applied, the more convenient the following
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process will be. The pretreatment processes mainly include dismantling, crushing, screening,
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thermal treatment, mechanochemical method, dissolution and so on. Some of valuable metals or
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materials, like Cu, Al and anode, are easy to recycle through pretreatment due to their significant
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different physical properties. Meanwhile, pretreatment methods play an important role in
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separating cathode materials from the Al foil and the organic binder, which will increase the
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complexity of leachate or make the waste hard to leach. For example, due to much better
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malleable properties of copper than graphite, the copper foils are easy to be separated from
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graphite carbon particles.33
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Shin et al.34 presented a single pretreatment technology, in which the spent LIBs were
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crushed directly into a suitable size and then a magnetic separation was conducted to collect the
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magnet. At the end of the process, a fine crushing and sieving were employed to eliminate Al foil,
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which will influence the leaching process. The removal of organic binder is important in
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pretreatment process. The common solutions are thermal treatment,35, 36 ultrasonic cleaning37 and
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organic reagent dissolution.38 Granata et al.35 used a two-rotors crushing and a splitter to achieve
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the separation of different materials. The organic binder was eliminated by thermal treatment at 7
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300 °C for 2 h. However, the decomposition of organic components like PVDF will release toxic
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and hazardous gases such as HF and heavy metal contaminated exhaust. Hence, using a system
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that consists of a cooler, a condensation chamber, carbon filters and bag filters as tail gas process
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plants to dispose gases appears to be necessary. Considering these disadvantages of the thermal
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treatment, researchers tried organic reagent to dissolve the organic binder. For example, the
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mixture of N,N-Dimethylformamide (DMF) and ethanol or N-methylpyrrolidone (NMP) is used as
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the dissolution reagent to dissolve PVDF, while the dissolution solvent itself is commonly known
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as toxicant.38 To offset the shortcoming of using toxic solvent, Pant and Dolker39 reported a green,
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non-toxic and environmental friendly solvent: citrus fruit juice (CFJ), as dissolution reagent.
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Nevertheless, the execution of the process involving CFJ normally requires a harsh condition
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(over 90 °C) to achieve effective dissolution.
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In addition to mechanical processing approaches, mechanochemical process is also an
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important technology which induces mechanically change of raw materials to influence their
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physical and chemical properties through high-energy ball-milling of materials.40-43 Meanwhile,
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some chemical reaction could be started during the grinding and rubbing accidentally. After that,
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the activity of materials will be improved. Therefore, meachaochemical technology is usually used
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in pretreatment processes to change or disrupt crystal structure of spent materials to enhance the
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leaching efficiency.
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methods, some technical hurdles and challenges still exist during the pretreatment, as summarized
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in Table 1. Furthermore, the disordered classification of spent batteries, complex disassembly
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processes and low efficiency of extracting valuable metals like lithium, still hinder the application
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of some pretreatment processes. Therefore, to meet the goal of recycling all valuable materials or
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metals in spent LIBs, pretreatment methods need to be combined with other physical and chemical
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processes.
40
Though, many researches have been focused on the research of pretreatment
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Table 1
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The summary of advantages and disadvantages of different pretreatment methods Technology
Detail of methods
Advantages
Disadvantages
Ref.
Separate materials according to Mechanical separation
different physical properties, like
Simple and convenient
Cannot recycle all kinds of components in
density, conductivity, magnetic
operation
spent LIBs completely
44, 45
behavior, etc. Require high input of energy, cannot recover Remove organic additives and binders Thermal process via thermal treatment
Simple and convenient
organic compounds, and would cause serious
operation
exhaust pollution if no exhaust purification
46, 47
device is equipped Dissolve the adhesive substance using
Low energy consumption, and
High cost of organic solvent as well as device
process
special organic reagents
almost no exhaust emission
investment
Mechanochemical
Discording the structure of the
efficiency of valuable metal and
method
materials using grinding techniques
making the reaction condition
Dissolution
29, 48, 49
Enhancing the leaching High energy consumption and noise problems
become mild
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Pyrometallurgical process
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Pyrometallurgical process is one branch of the extractive metallurgies to disposal ore and
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concentrates with thermal treatment through physical and chemical transformations to enable
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recovery of valuable metals. Pyrometallurgical methods have been widely investigated in
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recovering Zn, Ni, Cd and other heavy metals from spent Zn–Mn dry batteries or Ni-Cd
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batteries.52, 53 Generally, smelt slags were used in pyrometallurgical methods to separate metals, in
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which some metals go to the slag and target metals turn into alloy. Except for the Umicore
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technology,54,
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technologies. Ren et al.56 proposed a new slag system of MnO-SiO2-Al2O3 by adding CaO+SiO2,
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pyrolusite, and some Al shells into the pretreated spent LIBs. The mixture was then heated up to
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1475 °C for 30 minutes. A high purity alloy with Co (99.03%), Ni (99.30%), Cu (99.30%) and
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enriched slag with MnO (47.03%) and Li2O (2.63%) were achieved by this novel process.
55
pretreatment processes are unavoidable for most of the pyrometallurgical
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In a typical pyrometallurgical process, Li will end up into the slag phase, which has to be
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further extracted.15 Carbothermal reduction methods as a pyrometallurgical method to recycle Li
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and other metals have received attention in recent years.57 In this process, the mixed spent LIBs
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can be converted into metal oxide, pure metal or lithium carbonate. In one step, lithium carbonate
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is leached by water, while the graphite in the leaching slag burn and leave metal oxide as the final
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residue.58 In the subsequent step, pure metal, graphite and lithium carbonate are further separated
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by wet magnetic separation.59 However, the pyrometallurgical technologies also currently face the
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challenges on reducing energy consumption and match the rigorous requirements for the treatment
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equipment.
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Hydrometallurgical process
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A hydrometallurgical process mainly consists of leaching and extraction. It has many
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advantages in comparison with the pyrometallurgical process, such as high extraction efficiency,
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low energy consumption, little hazardous gas emission and low capital cost. It has a huge potential
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in industrial realization. However, little adaptability for disposing raw materials is a great
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challenge. Figure 3 shows a comprehensive summary of hydrometallurgical process. The 10
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hydrometallurgical process mainly includes leaching, solvent extraction, precipitation, and
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electrochemical method. Among them, a very limited number of studies are reported on disposal
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of spent LIBs via the electrochemical process, due to its high energy consumption, even though
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prior arts do suggest its feasibility of obtaining pure Co metal or Co compounds.8, 60-62
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233 234
Figure 3. Hydrometallurgical processes for spent LIBs.
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Traditional leaching
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To recycle spent LIBs, the cathode materials are usually dissolved in leaching reagents,
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followed by separation and extraction as main steps, which are similar to other metallurgical
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processes. In early research, inorganic acid reagents, such as HCl, HNO3 and H2SO4 were widely
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used as leaching agents, and were proven to be feasible and effective, while the disadvantages, e.g.,
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the emission of secondary pollutants and the complexity of separation and purification steps also
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appeared.47, 63, 64 The chemical reaction of leaching using HCl can be described as:
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8HCl+2LiCoO2→2CoCl2 +Cl2 ↑+2LiCl+5H2 O
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The reaction using other monatomic acid or ployatomic acid for leaching is similar. The leaching 11
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efficiency of Co without reductants follows the order of HCl > HNO3 ≈ H2SO4. The relatively high
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reducibility of HCl mainly contribute to this different leaching performance.65 Therefore, the
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leaching efficiency of most reagents would be unsatisfying unless H2O2 or other reductants are
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added. The mechanism of reduction reaction can be described as (take LCoO2 as an example):
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3H2 SO4 +2LiCoO2 +2H2 O2 →Li2 SO4+5H2 O+1.5O2 ↑+2CoSO4
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The reason that reductants like H2O2 or ascorbic acid can facilitate leaching can be explained by
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Figure 4(a). Although Co2+ is much easier to be dissolved than Co3+ at the room temperature, Co3+
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is predominately rich in spent materials. Hence when the Co3+ is converted to Co2+, the leaching
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efficiency and reaction kinetics will be improved obviously. Furthermore, the shadow in Figure
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4(a) may be a favorable area to separate Co3+ from Cu2+, Mn2+ and other metal ions because of its
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significantly different solubility constant among these metal ions. With increasing in reductant
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concentrations, the leaching efficiency and reaction rate would firstly increase accordingly, then
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reach a plateau, at which leaching efficiency and reaction rate will not vary appreciably.66
(2)
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Except for adding reductant, many organic leaching reagents, such as citric acid,67 aspartic
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acid,67 malic acid,67 oxalic acid,68 ascorbic acid,69 and glycine,70 are extensively investigated to
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solve those problems associated when using the inorganic leaching regents. The reaction
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mechanism of leaching by citric acid could be described as following71 : 18LiNi1/3 Co1/3 Mn1/3 O2 +18H3 Cit+C6 H12 O6 →
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6Li3 Cit+2Ni3 (Cit)2+2Co3 (Cit)2 +2Mn3 (Cit)2+33H2 O+6CO2 ↑
(3)
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According to Li et al.,72 the leaching efficiency of Co using citric acid is higher than that when
264
using HCl or H2SO4, while Li leaching efficiency remains similar among those different leaching
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media. Most of organic acid presents a similar reaction mechanism to critic acid with some
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exceptions such as oxalic acid. The oxalic acid could act both as reductant and leachant, and the
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leaching efficiencies of Co and Li could achieve 97 and 98%, with the reaction described as68
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4H2 C2 O4+2LiCoO2→CoC2 O4 ↓+LiHC2 O4 +2CO2 ↑+4H2 O
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Figure 4. (a) The connections between pH and the equilibrium concentration of metal ions in
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aqueous solution (25 °C); (b) The E-pH diagram for the Co−H2O and Ni−H2O systems (25 °C,
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Co=0.2 mol L-1, Ni=0.2 mol L-1).
274 275
In addition to the acid leaching system, alkaline system such as ammonia is also investigated.
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Zheng et al.73 introduced an ammonia-ammonium sulphate system as leaching system with a
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selectivity of metals during leaching. Ku et al.9 used a similar system including ammonia,
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ammonia sulfite and ammonia carbonate to leach. It was easy to separate Cu from Co, Ni in
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ammonia system, because Co and Ni in spent LIBs were in high valence state, making them hard
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to dissolve. Ammonia carbonate acted as a pH buffer to stabilize the pH of leaching solution.
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Ammonia sulfite was added as reductant to increase the leaching efficiencies of Co and Ni.
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In addition, the widely employed supercritical fluid in extracting metals offers a potential
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opportunity in leaching spent batteries. Bertuol et al.74 investigated the leaching of cobalt from the
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spent LIBs under a supercritical CO2 atmosphere with sulfuric acid and H2O2. The results showed
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that the reduction duration and the consumption of H2O2 could respectively drop from 60 min and
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8 vol. % to 5 min and 4 vol. %, with achieving the same leaching performance (95.5% Co). Liu et
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al.75 used subcritical water to accelerate the dechlorination of PVC, which was regarded as acid
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source in this experiment. Over 95% Co and closely 98% Li were leached under the conditions:
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PVC/LiCoO2 ratio 3:1, solid/liquid ratio (S/L) 16:1 (g/L), and temperature 350 °C. However, the
290
rigorous requirements of the equipment, high temperature, and high pressure atmosphere increase 13
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the capital cost and the complexity of operation. All of those above-mentioned technical hurdles
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make the passion of applying supercritical fluid in recycling batteries becoming calm down.
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As given in Table 2, the details of leaching processes of spent LIBs are summarized. Though
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there are many reports about leaching process, few of them focus on explaining the leaching
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mechanism based on crystallographic method, at molecular or atomic level. Takacova et al.76
296
explored the change of spent LIBs in HCl leaching process depending on the change of d(003). It
297
could be a good choice for further investigations of the leaching process in the future. The more
298
mechanisms we know about leaching process, the more conveniences we obtain to enhance
299
efficiency of leaching process.
300
For achieving the visualization of pros and cons of using different leaching reagents,
301
quantifying method for leaching rates of Li and Co are proposed in this work. The leaching rate of
302
metal is defined as:
303
rM =WM ×a×R/t
(5)
304
where rM represents the leaching rate of metal, WM (w/w %) represents weight percentage of metal
305
in raw materials (spent LIB), a (%) is the leaching efficiency of metal, R (g/L) is the S/L, whereas
306
t is the leaching time. This equation allows us to compare the leaching performance among
307
different reagents. In general, the leaching efficiency of valuable metals can reach more than 90%.
308
However, some of them use a low S/L or long leaching time. Assume 1kg of Co is leached from
309
spent LIBs by different leaching processes, Green House Gas (GHG) emissions, energy
310
consumption, and cost are also calculated with stoichiometric consumption of materials to
311
evaluate recycling. The relative data are gathered from the Greenhouse gases, Regulated
312
Emissions, and Energy use in Transportation (GREET) model proposed by Argonne National
313
Laboratory.77 As given in Figure 5, the GHG emission, energy consumption, and cost of organic
314
reagent are much higher than inorganic reagent. However, considering the biodegradability of
315
leaching reagent and reducing flue gas of productive process, the advantages of organic reagent is
316
quite obvious.67 Besides, we don’t give the relevant data about GHG emission and energy
317
consumption of H2SO4. The leaching rate of valuable metal in H2SO4 is much better than other
318
reagents for a large S/L and a short reaction time. However, H2SO4 are usually obtained as 14
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319
by-product of other technologies in many companies i.e., copper smelting. Therefore, there is no
320
data about GHG emission and energy consumption of H2SO4 production.77
321
In summary, leaching time, agitation speed, solid-to-liquid ratio, temperature, and
322
concentration of leachant and reductant were found to be the most influential factors on the
323
leaching performance. The leaching process would be enhanced with increasing in temperature,
324
leaching time, agitation speed, as well as concentrations of leachant and reductant, whereas the
325
leaching efficiency and rate both decrease obviously as solid-liquid ratio increases. It should be
326
noted that plateaus would show up when the above-mentioned factors increase to a certain value.
327
These will guide future efforts in optimization of leaching processes upon processing different
328
types of LIBs using different leaching media. MJ/kg 2300 1800 1500 1200
4 0.0 0.0 0.0
0 0.1
6 0.0 75
9
5
3
750
450
150
0.3
300
15 0.0
0.0
600
9
105 0 900
15
12
3
0.6 0.9 1.2 1.5 1.8
5
2.1
rLi((g/min⋅L))
rCo((g/min⋅L))
329
Emission CO2 kg/kg
6
300 0
21
900 600
18
Cost ¥
)
(
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60
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Succinic acid
HCl
Citric acid
H3PO4
330
Figure 5. The spider chart for relative evaluation index of leaching spent LIBs with typical
331
leaching reagents.
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332
Table 2
333
The cases of leaching spent LIBs using different leaching reagents Raw material
Reagent
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Leaching efficiency (%)
Temp.
Time
(°C)
(min)
Co
Li
Ref.
Inorganic acid leaching Spent LIBs
1.75 mol/L HCl
50
90
99.0
100.0
78
Spent LIBs (LiCoO2)
4 mol/L HCl
80
30
90.6
93.1
79
LiFePO4 and LiMn2O4
6.5 mol/LHCl +5 vol. % H2O2
30
60
74.1
80
LIB industry waste (LiCoO2)
2 mol/L H2SO4+5 vol. % H2O2
75
30
94.0
95.0
81
LiNixMnyCozO compounds
4 mol/L H2SO4 +5 vol. % H2O2
65-70
120
96.0
Spent LIBs (mixture)
1 mol/L H2SO4 +0.075 M NaHSO3
95
240
91.6
96.7
83
2 mol/L H2SO4 +5 vol. % H2O2
75
60
70.0
99.1
84
2% H3PO4 +2 vol. % H2O2
90
60
99.0
88.0
85
Spent LIBs (LiCoO2)
0.7mol/L H3PO4 +4 vol. % H2O2
40
60
99.0
100.0
86
Spend LIBs (LiCoO2)
1 mol/L HNO3 +1.7 vol. % H2O2
75
60
95.0
95.0
87
4 mol/L NH3-1.5 mol/L (NH4)2SO4 +0.5 M
80
300
80.7
95.3
73
Spent LIBs (LiCoO2) (from laptop computers) Spent LIBs (LiCoO2) (from mobile phones)
82
Alkaline leaching Spent LIBs (Li(Ni1/3Co1/3Mn1/3)O2)
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Raw material
Reagent
Leaching efficiency (%)
Temp.
Time
(°C)
(min)
Co
Li
80
60
93.0
95.0
80
120
96.7
70
80
96.0
98.0
89
95
150
97.0
98.0
68
80
120
99.0
90.0
66
Ref.
Na2SO4 Organic acid leaching Spent LIBs (LiCoO2) Spent LiCoO2 and CoO Spent LIBs (LiCoO2) Spent LIBs (LiCoO2) Spent LIBs (LiCoO2)
0.4 mol/L Tartaric acid +0.02 mol/L Ascorbic acid 1 mol/L Oxalate +5 vol. % H2O2 2 mol/L Citric acid + 0.6g/g H2O2 (H2O2/spent LIBs) 1 mol/L Oxalic acid 1 mol/L Iminodiacetic acid +0.02 M ascorbic acid
69
88
Spent LIBs (LiCoO2)
1 mol/L Maleic acid +0.02 M ascorbic acid
80
120
99.0
96.0
66
Spent LIBs (LiCoO2)
0.5 mol/L Glycine +0.02 M ascorbic acid
80
120
91.0
—
70
Spent LIBs (LiCoO2)
1.5 mol/L Succinic acid +4 vol. % H2O2
70
40
100.0
96.0
90
2 mol/L L-tartaric acid +4 vol. % H2O2
70
30
98.6
99.1
37
Spent LIBs (LiCoO2 and LiNi0.5Co0.2Mn0.3O2)
334
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335
Bio-metallurgical process
336
The performance of bio-metallurgical process primarily depends on the ability of
337
microorganisms to convert insoluble solid compounds into soluble and extractable forms.91 Mishra
338
et al.92 used chemolithotrophic and acidophilic bacteria acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans as leaching
339
bacteria. The reaction could be maintained at 30 °C with pH of 2.5, while the leaching efficiencies
340
of Co and Li both were quite low, even with a long leaching time and Fe2+ as catalyst. However,
341
according to the reports from Zeng et al. and Chen et al.93, 94, the leaching efficiency of Co could
342
reach 98.4% within 7 days in acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans with 0.02 g/L Ag+. Similarly, Cu2+
343
could also be used as catalyst during the acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans leaching process.95 The
344
result showed that the leaching efficiency of Co could reach 99.9% in 6 days with 0.75 g/L Cu2+
345
added into solution. Using mixed culture of different bacteria in one system was trialed, such as
346
the system mixed with acidophilic sulfur-oxidizing bacteria (SOB) and iron-oxidizing bacteria
347
(IOB).96, 97 Fungal leaching is a favorable technology compared with bacterial leaching.98 It has
348
many advantages, like growing over a wide range of pH, tolerating toxic materials and conducting
349
with a high leaching rate. There were various organic acids in fungi metabolite to achieve the
350
leaching process.98, 99
351
Compared to the conventional methods, bio-metallurgical process occurs in a mild condition
352
with less energy consumption, making it an eco-friendly technology.100 Nevertheless, the slow
353
kinetics and low pulp density are the fatal weaknesses of bio-metallurgical process when it is
354
applied to industrial production. In one research,101 the bioleaching efficiency decreased from 52%
355
to 10% for Co and from 80% to 37% for Li, when pulp density rose from 1% to 4%. Even though
356
high leaching efficiencies of Co and Li may be achieved with a high pulp density by controlling
357
reaction temperature, increasing the dose of mixed energy substrates, and adjusting the pH,101 the
358
leaching process are still be very time-consuming. Hence, the bio-metallurgical methods of
359
disposing spent LIBs are still far from industrial application, whereas they have significant
360
advantages in energy-saving.
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361 362
Solvent extraction
363
One of the main targets for recycling process is to obtain pure metal or metal compounds.
364
However, co-existing of various metal ions in the leachate will inevitably suppress the recycling of
365
pure metal or metal compounds. In addition, the overlap of pH range for precipitation of different
366
metals makes the attempt of single step precipitation ineffective in obtaining pure metals. Hence,
367
the leaching solution must undergo numerous steps of separation and extraction e.g., solvent
368
extraction, selective precipitation and electrochemical method, in order to achieve satisfied levels
369
of purity.
370
Solvent extraction is a liquid-liquid extraction method that utilizes the different relative
371
solubility of compounds in two immiscible liquid to separate them from each other. Although
372
facing the challenges of separating compounds with similar functional groups, it remains as
373
reliable and is widely adopted in the extraction of tungsten and molybdenum, copper from
374
minerals, nuclear reprocessing, and the production of fine organic compounds.
375
Effect of equilibrium pH on extraction of different metals is significant solvent extraction.
376
For example, the di-(2-ethylhexyl) phosphoric acid (D2EHPA) is good at extracting copper and
377
manganese ions, while its selectivity in extracting Co is poor at pH 2.2~3.0.102 When the pH of
378
leachate increases, the extraction efficiency of Co with cationic extractant D2EHPA is improved
379
accordingly.103 The extraction reaction follows the mechanism63, 104: -
380 381
(6)
-
(7)
or 2(HA)2Org +MOH+(Aq)+AOrg→MሺOHሻA·3HAሺOrgሻ+H+(Aq)
382 383
+ M2+ Aq +AOrg +2(HA)2Org →MA2 ·3HAOrg +HAq
-
where AOrg+ 2(HA)2Org represents the saponification reaction as:
384
Na+Aq +1/2(HA)2Org →NaAOrg +H+Aq
385
The extractant PC-88A can effectively separate Co and Ni ions from other metal ions at pH
386
4.5, while it has no extraction efficiency when pH is less than 3.102 Cyanex272 has been widely
387
investigated as extractant due to its excellent selectivity. Swain et al.81 used Cyanex 272 as 19
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388
extractant, 5 vol. % tributyl phosphate (TBP) as phase modifier and kerosene as diluent to extract
389
85.42% Co from the leachate at pH 5. Jha et al.105 also reported a similar system, except that
390
isodecanol was used as phase modifier. The extraction efficiency of Co reached 99.9% at pH 5.0.
391
The suitable scale of pH of different extraction reagents are summarized in Figure 6.79, 103, 106-108 It
392
is obvious that the suitable pH to separate Co and Ni of some reagents distributes in the pH range
393
between 3 and 5, which requires a good performance in corrosion resistance for reactor. For this
394
reason, Cynaex 272, Cynaex 302 and P507 may be a good choice. The additive can change the
395
optimal pH of solvent extraction. For example, in Figure 6, when the PC-88A is used alone to
396
selectively extract Co, the suitable pH range falls between 3.5 and 4. The extraction efficiency of
397
Ni is low in this range. When TOA is added as phase modifier, the suitable pH scale will shift
398
between 3.5 and 5, which is higher than its previous one and leaves more room for operational
399
parameters to adjust.
400
401 402
Figure 6. Effect of suitable pH on the solvent extraction of different extraction reagent. (The pH
403
scale of different extractants is summarized under the same conditions like 25 ºC and A:O=1, 20
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404
except the Mextral 5640H (A:O=2)).
405 406
Precipitation
407
The selective precipitation is a single chemical process, which has been widely investigated
408
and applied in extracting metals from complex system. Sometimes, it is hard to precipitate only
409
one ion from solution. From the E-pH diagram shown in Figure 4(b), the overlap between stable
410
areas of Co(OH)2 and Ni(OH)2 is so large that Ni2+ and Co2+ is prone to be co-precipitated via
411
neutralization reaction. However, Figure 4(b) also indicates that the stable areas of Ni2+ and
412
Co(OH)3 have a small overlap. Thus, it is a possible approach to transform Co2+ to Co3+ to achieve
413
selective precipitation of Co3+ in this small area. The above-described strategy was proven to be
414
feasible and effective by Joulié et al.
415
and Ni both were nearly 100%. The reaction mechanism can be expressed as:
65
With NaClO as oxidant, the recovery efficiencies of Co
416
Co2+ +ClO- +2H3 O+ →2Co3+ +Cl- +3H2 O
(9)
417
Co3+ +6HO-→Co2O3+3H2 O
(10)
418
It should be noted that no Mn exists in the system reported by Joulié et al.65 When Mn2+ is
419
oxidized to Mn4+ at pH of 2, it will form MnO2 or manganese hydroxide according to the reaction
420
described as follow:
421
3Mn2+ +2MnO4 +2H2O→5MnO2 +4H+
(11)
422
The dimethylglyoxime reagent (DMG, C4H8N2O2) is widely used to precipitate Ni2+ as nickle
423
dimethylglyoxime chelating precipitate from Co, Ni, and Mn mixed solutions. As reported by
424
Chen et al.109, nearly 96% of Ni2+ could be precipitated within 20 minutes at room temperature
425
(Equation 13). The values of pKsp for Co2+, Ni2+ and Li+ are in the order of
426
NiC2O4≈CoC2O4>>Li2C2O4.39 After removing Ni2+ and Co2+, the main metal ion in leachate is Li+,
427
which can be precipitated efficiently as Li2CO3 or Li3PO4 (Equation 16).71
428
6C4 H8 N2 O2 +Ni3 (Cit)2 →3Ni(C4 H6N2 O2)2+2H3 Cit
(12)
429
ሺNH4 ሻ2 C2 O4 +Co2+ +2OH-→CoC2O4 ·2H2 O+2NH3
(13)
430
Co3 ሺCitሻ2 +3H2 C2 O4 →3CoC2O4 +2H3 Cit
(14)
431
Li3 Cit+H3 PO4 →Li3 PO4 +H3 Cit
(15)
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432 433
Method of leaching-re-synthesis
434
Traditional separation and extraction technologies, e.g., solvent extraction, precipitation, and
435
ion-exchange are usually not economically justifiable to be applied in industrial production due to
436
their significant disadvantages, e.g., complicated recycling routes, high chemical reagent
437
consumption, and high waste emission. Therefore, the short and efficient route for the recycling of
438
spent LIBs is the potential process and need to be researched. In order to shorten the route, avoid
439
the problems in separating metal ions from each other, reduce secondary pollution, and enhance
440
the recycling efficiencies of valuable metals, material synthesis methods to achieve one-step
441
fabrication from leachate to regenerate materials were researched recently, like the
442
leaching-re-synthesis method.110-112 The leaching-re-synthesis method, which belongs to
443
regeneration methods, is focused on the synthesizing the regenerated materials in short steps
444
through sol-gel or coprecipitation technologies.
445
In recent researches, Sa et al.111 used the leachate as the raw liquor to regenerate
446
LiNi1/3Mn1/3Co1/3O2 in N2 atmosphere at room temperature using a typical co-precipitation method.
447
After 50 cycles, the capacity of regenerated material decreases to 80% (120 mA h g-1) with the
448
first cycle.111 With previous experience of using ascorbic acid for leaching, Lu et al.113 adjusted the
449
metal ions ratio and pH of the leachate to obtain regenerated cathode material LiCo1/3Ni1/3Mn1./3O2
450
through a sol-gel process. Zou et al.114 used similar technology to dispose the mixed raw cathode
451
materials and obtained regenerated cathode materials as products with well electric performance.
452
Some information of the leaching-re-synthesis approaches are provided in Table 3. It can be seen
453
that the regenerated cathode materials present similar characteristics to the commercial batteries in
454
terms of rate capacity and cycle life. Among them, the electrochemical properties of regenerated
455
cathode materials from ascorbic acid leaching system are much better than those prepared from
456
other systems. Other than that, the available data suggest that little difference of electrochemical
457
properties exists in cathode material from different leachates.
458
Except for cathode materials, synthesizing other reactive materials from the spent LIBs is
459
also a good alternative and has been widely developed by many researchers. Yao et al.115 used a 22
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460
simple technology, including pretreatment, sulfuric acid leaching, filtering, sol-gel, and calcination
461
method, to obtain sintered or hydrothermal cobalt ferrite precursor (S-CoFe2O4 or H-CoFe2O4).
462
The products have excellent characteristics in term of magnetostriction coefficient (-158.5 ppm)
463
and train derivative coefficient (-1.69×10-9 A-1).115
23
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464
Table 3
465
Summary of regeneration approach of cathode materials from spent LIBs in literature Final production
Leaching reagent
Addition reagent
Precipitant
H2SO4 (+H2O2)
Sulfate salts
Ammonia solution
LiNixCoyMn1-x-yO2 (LiNi0.8Co0.1Mn0.1O2 LiNi0.5Co0.2Mn0.3O2
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Initial discharge capacity mA h g−1(2.7-4.3 V 0.1 C)
Ref.
197.7 174.3
110
168.3
LiNi1/3Co1/3Mn1/3O2) LiNi1/3Mn1/3Co1/3O2
H2SO4 (+H2O2)
Sulfate salts
NaOH and NH3·H2O
139.0
111
LiNi1/3Mn1/3Co1/3O2
D,L-malic acid
Solution
Metal nitrate
147.2 (0.5 C)
113
LiNi1/3Co1/3Mn1/3O2
Citric acid (+H2O2)
Nitrate salts
Ammonia solution
154.2(0.2 C)
116
LiNixMnyCozO2
H2SO4 (+H2O2)
Sulfate salts
NaOH and NH3·H2O
155.0
117
Li[(Ni1/3Co1/3Mn1/3)1−xMgx]O2
H2SO4 (+H2O2)
Sulfate salts
152.7(0.2 C)
118
LiNi1/3Mn1/3Co1/3O2
H2SO4 (+H2O2)
Sulfate salts
NaOH
160.0
114
Li1.2Co0.13Ni0.13Mn0.54O2
Ascorbic acid
Acetate salts
Oxalic acid
258.8
119
Controlled Crystallization
466 467
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468
CURRENT RESEARCH FOR THE RECYCLING OF ANODE AND
469
ELECTROLYTE
470
The recycling of anode and electrolyte are also important to establish a comprehensive
471
recovery technology of the spent LIBs as well as to release the environmental pollution and
472
potential safety risks. While due to their relatively low value, only a little attention has been paid
473
to this area. In Umicore process, the electrolyte is removed and pyrolyzed under 300 ºC and 600
474
ºC, respectively.120 In hydrometallurgical processes, the electrolyte can be reclaimed by using
475
organic or supercritical solvent.121 Liu et al.122 developed a process for the recycling of spent LIBs
476
electrolyte including supercritical CO2 extraction, weakly basic anion exchange resin
477
deacidification, molecular sieve dehydration, and components supplement. The electrochemical
478
performance of the reclaimed electrolyte was acceptable compared to the commercial one. The
479
high-cost and low-process-capacity are the key factors limiting further promotion of supercritical
480
solvent.
481
As for the anode, it is usually separated form spent LIBs through physical methods, like
482
dismantling, crushing, screening and other mechanical processes. Guo et al.123 indicated that 30.07
483
mg/g Li existed in the anode active materials. Therefore, a traditional acid leaching method was
484
used to recover Li from anode active materials. Besides, the graphite obtained from spent anode
485
showed a large surface area and a stable crystal structure. After removing the organic binder and
486
other organic impurities under high temperature, it could be used as porous supporting material to
487
synthesize new function materials, like sorbents. 124, 125
488
CURRENT INDUSTRIAL RECYCLING PROCESS
489
The recovery of spent LIBs are relatively new in comparison with the recycling of Ni-Cd and
490
Pb-acid batteries, and many of the technologies are still in lab- or small-scale pilot stages. The first
491
commercial production line was established by TOXCO in 1994. 126 After that, with the increased
492
attention, more and more technologies have been applied in commercial production and many
493
companies have established a complete line to recycle spent LIBs around the world. Current 25
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494
industrial processes for the recycling of spent LIBs are summarized in Table 4. The percentage and
495
annual processing capacity of spent LIBs recycled by different technology is shown in Figure 7, in
496
which the data is mainly based on thirty companies and twelve companies, respectively.
497
498 499
Figure 7. The percentage of spent lithium-ion batteries recycled by different technology based on
500
the (a) quantity of companies (thirty companies) and (b) annual processing capacity of some of
501
these companies (seven companies); (c) flow-sheet of main processes used in industries.
502 503
Flow-sheet of main processes is shown in Figure 7(c). Most of the commercial processes
504
used pyrometallurgical methods as secondary technologies. 127 The reason is that most of them are
505
not a LIB dedicated recycling process in their original design, like Xstrata, Batrec AG, Akkuser,
506
etc. Only Co, Ni and Cu could be recovered effectively through pyrometallurgical methods. Li and
507
Al are lost in the slag. Besides, alloy of Cobalt and Nickel also need to be processed through
508
hydrometallurgical methods, like electrolyzing. Therefore, most of these companies establish a
509
process combining pyrometallurgical and hydrometallurgical methods. In Umicore process, the
510
discharging phase is omitted and pretreatment of spent LIBs is unnecessary, which are the
511
important technologies in other processes. Comparing to other processes, it is simple and effective.
512
Complex mechanical methods are used to separate materials from each other. The Cu foil, Al foil,
513
and steel are separated from other components and reused directly in new batteries through 26
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514
mechanical methods in other processes. However, they need to be further recovered to obtain
515
production in Umicore process. Toxco and Sumitomo-Sony processes face the issues of gas
516
emissions in pyrometallurgical methods and H2 emissions in wet crushing. The processes include
517
similar methods also have these issues. Recupyl Valibat process conducts recycling process under
518
a low-temperature making it easy to disposal flue gas and H2. Handling spent LIBs under CO2
519
atmosphere also reduce the risk of mechanical treatment with discharged LIBs. Many of
520
hydrometallurgical methods have also been achieved in industrial application, like Recupyl
521
Valibat process, Toxco process, Accurec, etc. In Recupyl process, the slag from mechanical
522
treatment is dissolved in H2SO4. Cobalt in solution is oxidized by NaClO to obtain cobalt
523
hydroxide. Lithium remained in the solution is precipitated by CO2 gas. In other companies, the
524
hydrometallurgical processes included similar technologies, like leaching, solvent extraction,
525
precipitation, etc. The long routes of them are the main drawback, which will result in the loss of
526
valuable metal and pollution. Bangpu establishes a closed-loop for the recycling of spent LIBs
527
from waste to regenerated cathode materials or other valuable materials, which could achieve the
528
recycling of spent LIBs in a short route. The details of these hydrometallurgical processes are not
529
available. But, they could be similar to the processes we introduced in “hydrometallurgical
530
process”.
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Table 4 Summary of current LIB recycling industrial technologies throughout the world120, 128, 129 Company/Process
Location (s)
Annual capacity
Details of technology
(tonnes/year) TM
Umicore (VAL’EAS )
USA
7000
Main end products
It combines pyrometallurgical and hydrometallurgical technologies.
CoCl2
Spent LIBs are fed to a single shaft furnace. The alloy containing Co, Ni from furnace are further processed through leaching process. Li and Al mainly existed in the slag and need to be further treated through hydrometallurgical technologies. S.N.A.M
France
300
First stage is sortation techniques. Then the rough crushed products are disposed by pyrolysis pretreatment, crushing, and sieving.
Batrec AG
Switzerland
200
The spent LIBs are stored and shredded under CO2 atmosphere. Then, the scrap is neutralized by moist air and further treated with hydrometallurgical process.
Inmetco
USA
6000
The scarp is processed in a rotary hearth furnace and further refined
Alloy(Co/Ni/Fe)
in an electric arc furnace. Sumitomo-Sony
Japan
150
Electrolyte and plastics are removed through calcination. A
CoO
pyrometallurgical process is used to recover an alloy containing Co-Ni-Fe. A hydrometallurgical process is conducted to recover Co. AkkuSer Ltd
Finland
4000
A two-phase crushing line is designed. Magnetic separation and
Metal poeder
other separation methods follow it. Then, the scrap is delivered to smelting plants and leaching. Toxco
Canada
4500
It combines mechanical methods, like shredding, milling and 28
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CoO,
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Table 4 Summary of current LIB recycling industrial technologies throughout the world120, 128, 129 screening and hydrometallurgical methods, like leaching, and
Li2CO3
precipitation. Recupyl Valibat
France
110
Mechanical methods are used as first stage. Then, hydrometallurgical
Co(OH)2, Li3PO4.
methods are used to obtain Co(OH)2 and Li3PO4. Accurec GmbH
Germany
6000
A vacuum furnace is used first. Then, mechanical methods are used
Co alloy, Li2CO3
to separate different materials. After that, scrap is fed to an electric furnace. Slag is disposed through hydrometallurgical methods. AEA
UK
-
The first stage is using organic solvent to remove electrolyte, solvent
LiOH, CoO
and binder. Leaching of cathode is carried by electrolyzing. Glencore plc.
Canada/Norway
7000
USA
-
It combines pyrometallurgical and hydrometallurgical methods.
Alloy(Co/Ni/Cu)
Preliminary
Cathode powder
(former Xstrata) Onto process
step
involves
discharge,
electrolyte
recovery,
refurbishing, and ball mill. Supercritical fluid is used to separate different materials. LithoRec proces
Germany
-
It combines similar mechanical methods and hydrometallurgical
CoO, Li salt
methods. Green Eco-manufacture
China
20000
Hi-Tech Co Bangpu Ni/Co High-Tech Co
Hydrometallurgical methods including leaching, purifying and
Co powder
leaching- resynthesize is used. China
3600
Hydrometallurgical methods including leaching, purifying and leaching- resynthesize is used.
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Cathode material, Co3O4
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531
DISCUSSION
532
Firstly, it is very interesting to notice that in comparison with the inorganic leachants, organic
533
leachants are relatively few to be chosen as leaching media to conduct the extraction process
534
recently, even though they are regarded as green reagents. In most of reports about solvent
535
extraction, precipitation or regeneration technology, the leaching liquids are from inorganic
536
leaching process. Among them, H2SO4 is the most frequent leachant. Organic reagents can avoid
537
the problems associated with inorganic leachants, such as triggering air pollution, rigorous
538
requirements of equipment and difficulty in recycling leaching reagents. However, the research
539
results have shown that the organic leaching can only conduct well with a low solid-to-liquid ratio,
540
which decreases the concentration of Li+ in leachate and limits the treatment capacity for
541
industrial production. A leachate with low concentration of Li+ is difficult to product high-purity
542
lithium compounds and needs to be concentrated. Besides, all of these leaching processes need to
543
be followed by solvent extraction or precipitation, in which the loss of Li is serious, to obtain the
544
pure production of Ni/Co/Mn or compounds. For example, when the D2EHPA is used to extract
545
Ni and Co, 20% Li will be co-extracted.130 The loss of Li is nearly 17% in removing Ca and Mg
546
by NaF.118 Therefore, all of these leaching reagents have their own limitations to recover valuable
547
metals from spent LIBs both cost-effectively and environmental friendly. Selectively extracting
548
target metals with a hydrometallurgical process from mines or electronic wastes has been proved
549
to be feasible in many prior researches. It is regarded as a promising approach to change the
550
current situation in recycling spent LIBs.131 Gao et al.132 achieved the selective extraction of Al
551
and Li from LiNi1/3Co1/3Mn1/3O2 cathode scrap by using formic acid as leaching reagent. It was
552
found that the selectivity of Al was more than 95% with no Al(OH)3 phase existing in Ni/Co/Mn
553
hydroxide precipitate. Meanwhile, the relatively low solubility of Co(COOH)2, Ni(COOH)2, and
554
Mn(COOH)2 comparing with Li(COOH)2 contributes to the spontaneous separation of Ni/Co/Mn
555
and Li. As Zheng et al.73 reported, the ammonia-ammonium sulphate solution with reductant could
556
also achieve the selective leaching of Li, Ni and Co from Li(Ni1/3Co1/3Mn1/3)O2 cathode scraps.
557
However, the optimal solid-to-liquid ratio in alkali system was so small that the subsequent 30
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558
extraction approaches were hard to conduct. Li et al.133 reported the selective leaching of Li from
559
spent LiFePO4 through H2SO4 at a low concentration, which was much better than the traditional
560
leaching with a high concentration of H2SO4 and a large consumption of H2O2. In consideration of
561
the rising price of lithium carbonate in recent years, it is a quite significant direction to research
562
the selective extraction of Li. Of course, the best outcome is that we can achieve recovery of
563
single metal element from spent LIBs or other waste, and leave the other metals in solid waste.15
564
Secondly, in the aspect of energy consumption, data of hydrometallurgical process,
565
intermediate physical method from Toxco, direct physical process from OnTo Technology, and
566
pyrometallurgical process from Umicore introduced by Dunn et al.134, 135, have also been estimated.
567
For simplicity, Figure 8 and Figure 9 only summarize the results of energy consumption from
568
Dunn et al.134, 135, in which the estimate is based on the GREET model proposed by Argonne
569
National Laboratory.77 Note that the energy consumption of recycling LiCoO2 through some
570
processes is not directly shown in article. The estimate of missing data follows the mechanism
571
introduced by Dunn et al.135 For example, the production of intermediate recycling process is
572
Li2CO3. We estimate the energy consumption of LiCoO2 of intermediate recycling process by
573
adding the energy consumption of producing virgin Co3O4 and recycling Li2CO3 following the
574
chemical reaction of producing LiCoO2. Figure 8 illustrates that the energy intensities of recycling
575
materials are less than producing virgin materials. With the consumption of citric acid and
576
hydrogen peroxide included in the overall process, the energy consumption of hydrometallurgical
577
process is tremendous, while the process itself is not energy intensive. Besides, an external
578
process of hydrometallurgical method, adding Mn2O3 to react with Li2CO3 to form LiMn2O4 in the
579
end, also makes the energy consumption of hydrometallurgical process more than other processes.
580
Figure 9 contains estimates of the energy consumption and Green House Gas (GHG) in total
581
LiMn2O4 production with different recycled materials. It indicates that the more recycled materials
582
are used in production, the less energy will be need in the overall process. Therefore, the reduction
583
of energy consumption and GHG emissions in the whole process to produce LiMn2O4 may be
584
possible when recycled LiMn2O4, Al and Cu are used as raw materials as shown in Figure 9.134
585
Furthermore, a reduction in total energy consumption could be foreseeable, if a closed-loop 31
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586
recycling scenario of LIBs is achieved. Because of the lack of relevant data, literatures seldom
587
report the energy consumption of other methods, such as regenerated method and
588
bio-metallurgical method. Whereas, it is important to estimate the energy consumption, which will
589
make a difference in future work.
590 591
Figure 8. Estimated energy consumption for LiCoO2 and LiMn2O4 production via different
592
automotive battery recycling processes. (The energy consumption during virgin LiMn2O4
593
production in Nevada and Chile is from Dunn et al.134 The energy consumption during virgin
594
LiCoO2 production is from Kushnir and Sandén.136).
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GHG emissions without reycling
5000
Hydrometallurgical Intermediate Physical Direct Physical
4000 3000 2000 1000
Energy consumption (MJ/kg battery)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60
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80
0
Energy consumption without reycling
GHG emissions (g CO2e/kg battery)
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70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 All
Al
Cu
LiMn2O4
Recycled Component
595 596
Figure 9. The energy consumption (MJ/kg battery) of using recycled aluminum, copper, cathode
597
materials, or all of them to fabricate batteries used in electric vehicles (The solid back line is the
598
consumption of using virgin materials).
599 600
Thirdly, the “3R” principles in green chemistry should be emphasized in recycling processes.
601
Though the current researches mainly focus on the recovery and regeneration, which are the last
602
principle of “3R”, it is still hard to implement recent developed technologies in industrial
603
production because of low economic benefit and secondary pollution. For easiness of
604
implementing proposed process in industrial production, how simple the process or the route it is
605
plays pivotal role. It is widely known that a loss coefficient needs to be considered during
606
industrial production. The longer and more complex a technology is, the more valuable metal will
607
be lost, and will result in less economic benefit, such as the loss of Li in organic phase.130
608
Therefore, the best method is to observe “reuse” principle, which requires the waste should be
609
reused as its original purpose or reused as component to fulfill a different function. In this
610
principle, the waste is directly recycled or undergoes repairing process before being recycled. The
611
reuse method or regeneration methods are all short routes to recycle materials with little loss and
612
low energy consumption. 33
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613
In the aspect of legislation, successfully making “3R” ideology into integrated utilization and
614
recycling the valuable components in spent LIBs not only rely on technical breakthrough made
615
from industry and research organizations, but also rely on government support, public awareness
616
of environmental protection, innovation of manufacture and management of LIBs from cradle to
617
grave. The recycling efficiency and the complexity of technology mainly depend on the
618
complexity of spent materials. With excellent collection system and well known classification
619
method, the recycling process will become much simpler. As a result, the simplified process will
620
lead to an improved efficiency of recovery, a reduction of cost, and an increased profit margin. To
621
establish a good collection system, both collection mechanism itself and enforcement of
622
legislative policies are important. Fortunately, with the problem of spent LIBs gaining more and
623
more public awareness, governments realize the importance of setting up a comprehensive
624
collection system. The relevant laws and policies have been established to encourage the
625
development of recycling spent LIBs. As seen in Table 5, laws relevant to the collection and
626
disposal of spent batteries are constantly increasing from 2000 to now. In the early years, the
627
regulations of recycling spent LIBs were covered in the laws of disposing solid waste, as a small
628
aspect. Afterwards, some comprehensive policies about spent batteries, mainly pointing to lead
629
acid battery, are established. In recent years, special laws for spent LIBs have been established, as
630
the severity pollution caused by batteries leakage is spreading quickly and widely. Given these
631
legislative policies have already been nailed in, the public are less prone to ignore pollution caused
632
by battery leakage.
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Table 5 Regulations relevant to spent batteries in China Regulations title Policy on pollution prevention techniques from municipal solid waste
Year
Main related content
2000
Lead the development and improvement of managing and disposing municipal solid waste.
Policy on pollution prevention techniques from hazardous wastes
2001
Lead the development and improvement of managing and disposing hazardous wastes.
Policy on pollution prevention techniques from waste batteries
2003
Require manufacturers to collect spent batteries; Aim to encourage the development of managing and recycling technology of spent batteries and reduce the pollution.
Discarded household appliances and electronic products pollution control technology 2006
Aim to reduce the pollution of electric waste.
policy Auto product recovery and usage technology policy
2006
Require the automobile production enterprises to establish the collection and treatment of power batteries produced by them, or send the spent power batteries to the special company, who can dispose them.
Measures for the control of environmental pollution of electronic waste
2008
Cover the stipulations about collecting, disposing, managing
Emission standard of pollutants for battery industry
2013
Stipulate the quantity of waste water and gas from industry.
Technical requirement for environmental labeling products Battery
2013
Add the requirements about design, product and recycle
of electric waste.
process. The policy on recycling technology of electric vehicle power battery (ask for comment)
2015
Lead the development of managing and disposing spent electric vehicles power batteries.
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Regulations title The policy on recycling technology of electric vehicle power battery (2015)
Page 36 of 53
Year
Main related content
2016
Emphasize the fact that the responsibility of recycling spent power batteries belongs to the battery manufacturers.
The industry norms of utilizing waste power battery from new energy vehicles
2016
The interim measures for managing industry norms of utilizing waste power battery from
Give the requirements about the factory size, equipment, technology, energy consumption of recycling industries.
new energy vehicles Policy on pollution prevention techniques from waste batteries (ask for comment)
2016
Enlarge the managing scope of spent batteries. Encourage establishing collecting system and researching new recycling technology.
634
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635
CONCLUSIONS AND OUTLOOK
636
Globally, several companies, such as AEA Technology (U.K.), SNAM (France), Toxco
637
(Canada), and Umicore (Belgium), have established complete production lines to recycle metals
638
from spent LIBs.55 They are mainly focusing on employing the pyrometallurgical methods,
639
hydrometallurgical methods or combined methods of them. Concerning economic benefit,
640
traditional metallurgical processes (a long process including pretreatment, leaching, and purifying)
641
have little competitiveness in comparison with newly short processes, such as selective extraction,
642
regeneration and repairing processes. Though many reports researched the recycling technologies
643
of metals from spent LIBs, few of them have achieved cost-effectiveness on an industrial scale.
644
Meanwhile, there is no commercial technology to achieve the recycling of waste mixed with
645
different cathodes. Many mechanisms of physical and chemical changes in the recycling process
646
need to be deeply explored. A complete system of recycling LIBs need to be discussed and
647
established. For future research in the recycling of spent LIBs, we believe that it should focus on
648
the following aspects:
649
650 651
Whether the lab-scale technologies have industrial application prospects and how to scale them step-by-step are of primary importance.
The mechanisms of the leaching process are still inconclusive. Lots of works still
652
need to be done to guide the selection of leaching reagent and operating conditions.
653
For example, the changes of crystal structure in leaching process need to be deeply
654
researched. It will be very helpful in shedding insightful lights on reaction
655
mechanism during leaching
656
657 658
Selective leaching of most valuable metals from the spent LIBs has not been achieved yet. The relative researches should be strengthened in the future.
Most studies of disposing spent LIBs only focused on the kinetics and the
659
influence of operational parameters on leaching performance, while more efforts
660
need to be paid for establishing a complete evaluation system, in which more
661
critical factors, such as energy consumption of the whole process, could be 37
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662
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considered.
663
Furthermore, efforts also need to be concentrated on enhancing the collecting
664
efficiency and reducing the landfill of spent LIBs, which are hazardous for soil,
665
water and living organism on Earth.
666
Not restricting to the recycling process of spent LIBs, the comprehensive and
667
holistic view from cradle to grave in designing, manufacturing and recycling LIBs
668
needs to be addressed.
669
Last but not the least, a global homogenized mechanism in manufacturing, classification,
670
collection and recycling will significantly reduce the complexity of raw material, which in turn
671
minimizes the energy consumption of recycling process. All of these aspects have lasting
672
influence on achieving the economic and eco-friendly recycling of spent LIBs.
673 674
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
675 676
This work was financially supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of
677
China (2017YFB0403300/2017YFB043305), Beijing Science and Technology Program (No.
678
Z171100002217028), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51425405 and
679
L1624051) and National Science and technology Support Plan Project (2015BAB02B05).
680 681 682
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683 684 685 686 687 688 689 690 691 692
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(119) Li, L.; Zhang, X.; Chen, R.; Zhao, T.; Lu, J.; Wu, F.; Amine, K., Synthesis and electrochemical performance of cathode material Li1.2Co0.13Ni0.13Mn0.54O2 from spent lithium-ion batteries. J. Power Sources. 2014, 249, 28-34. DOI: 10.1016/j.jpowsour.2013.10.092. (120) Marinos, D. An approach to beneficiation of spent lithium-ion batteries for recovery of 46
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materials. University of Colorado, Colorado, 2014. (121) Liu, Y. Reserach on recycling and reusing of carbonate based electrolyte for lithium ion batteries by super critical CO2. Harbin instiute of technology, Harbin, 2017. (122) Liu, Y.; Mu, D.; Li, R.; Ma, Q.; Zheng, R.; Dai, C., Purification and Characterization of Reclaimed Electrolytes from Spent Lithium-Ion Batteries. The Journal of Physical Chemistry C. 2017, 121 (8), 4181-4187. DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcc.6b12970. (123) Guo, Y.; Li, F.; Zhu, H.; Li, G.; Huang, J.; He, W., Leaching lithium from the anode electrode materials of spent lithium-ion batteries by hydrochloric acid (HCl). Waste Manag. 2016, 51, 227-33. DOI: 10.1016/j.wasman.2015.11.036.
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TOC/Abstract Art
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For Table of Contents Use Only
1104 1105
Synopsis
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A critical review and analysis for the recycling of valuable metals and materials from spent
1107
lithium-ion batteries is demonstrated.
1108 1109 1110 1111 1112 1113 1114 1115 1116 1117 1118 1119 1120 1121 49
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Author information
1123
Corresponding Authors
1124
*Z. Sun. E-mail:
[email protected]; Tel: +86 10 82544844
1125
Fax: +86 10 82544845.
1126
Notes
1127
The authors declare no competing financial interest.
1128
Biographies
1129 1130
Weiguang Lv is a doctoral student in the Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of
1131
Sciences. He received B.Sc. degree in metallurgical engineering (Central South University). His
1132
current research focuses on efficient recovery of valuable metal from spent LIBs.
1133 1134
Dr. Zhonghang Wang is a postdoctoral researcher in the Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese
1135
Academy of Sciences (IPE, CAS). He received the B.Sc. degree in chemical engineering and
1136
technology (Central South University), and the Ph. D. in chemical technology (University of
1137
Chinese Academy of Sciences). He has been working on electrometallurgy and molten salt
1138
electrochemistry for many years. His current research focuses on efficient recovery of valuable 50
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metals from the e-waste, and the electro-conversion of e-waste to high-value products.
1140 1141
Dr. Hongbin Cao is a professor in Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences,
1142
deputy director of the National Engineering Laboratory for Hydrometallurgical Cleaner
1143
Production Technology and director of Beijing Engineering Research Center of Process Pollution
1144
Control. His research interest is the whole process control of industrial pollution: theory,
1145
technology and application. Dr. Cao has published over 100 papers, and applied over 60 patents
1146
including 5 international patents. He won the second prize of State Technological Innovation
1147
Award (2013), the first prize of Environmental protection science and Technology Award (2012)
1148
and the first prizes of Science and Technology Invention Award of Liaoning province (2011). He is
1149
also the holder of National High-level personnel of special support program (2013) and the holder
1150
of the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars of China (2014).
1151 1152
Dr. Yong sun is Technical Support Engineer within the School of Engineering's Technical Support
1153
team. He received Ph.D. of Biochemical Engineering in China and M.Sc degree of Engineering
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Science in Monash University. His current research focuses on expertise in fischer-tropsch
1155
synthesis, heterogeneous catalysis, hydrometallurgy, gas separation and storage, fluidization. Dr. 51
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Sun has coauthored more than 50 publications.
1157
1158 1159
Professor Zhang, working in the Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences
1160
(CAS), is one of the chief scientists firstly entering the field of green process engineering in China
1161
and is currently engaged in the fundamental and application research on green process engineering
1162
and environmental control technology. As the chief scientist, she had presided the first National
1163
Sci-Tech Project and the first 863 Project on cleaner process research. Furthermore, she proposed
1164
a revolutionary green process for highly efficient and clean conversion of mineral resources with
1165
sub-molten salt medium. Professor Zhang has achieved the second and third prizes of National
1166
Technical Invention Awards, the second and third prize of National Sci-Tech Progress Awards, and
1167
the first prize of Sci-Tech Progress Awards of CAS (3 times). Professor Zhang has published more
1168
than 170 papers and edited 9 books. She has also submitted 34 China invention patent applications
1169
with 10 granted. Under her directing, 48 graduates has obtained their master's or Ph. D. degrees
1170
since 1990.
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1174 1175
Dr. Zhi Sun is a professor in the Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
1176
He received B.Sc. degree in metallurgical engineering (University of Science and Technology
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Beijing), M.Sc. degree in chemical engineering (Chinese Acadamy of Sciences) and Ph.D. in
1178
materials engineering (KU Leuven, Belgium). He has been working as a postdoctoral researcher in
1179
University of Queensland, Australia and senior researcher in Delft University of Technology, The
1180
Netherlands. His current research focuses on electronic waste treatment, sustainable process
1181
design for metal recycling and green design of electronic products. He is member of the Chinese
1182
association of waste battery treatment. Dr. Sun has coauthored more than 50 publications and 5
1183
patents. He is also editorial board member of two international journals.
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