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Battery recycling

Efficient metal recovery from lithium-ion batteries using plastics

Nature Reviews Electrical Engineering volume 1, page 767 (2024)Cite this article

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Lithium-ion batteries using LiNixCoyMnzO2 (x + y + z = 1, NCM) as cathodes have been widely adopted in the industry for electric vehicles owing to their high energy density. However, finding an energy-saving and efficient way to recycle and reuse these batteries remains a substantial challenge. Various methods to recover value metals from discarded batteries — including pyrometallurgical recovery, hydrometallurgical reclamation, and mechanical recycling — often involve high energy consumption, extensive use of chemicals, low recovery efficiency, or prohibitive costs. Now, writing in Communications Engineering, Zhe Meng et al. develop a chemical-free, energy-saving, scalable and efficient recovery strategy by thermally treating NCM and polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which is a polymer widely used in disposable plastic products, and contributes to the generation of tons of waste.

The team also performed theoretical calculations to explore the mechanisms behind the synergetic pyrolysis of the mixture of NCM and PET. They attributed the Li extraction from NCM to oxygen atoms situated on the horizontal PET, which favour bonding with Li on the (001) surface of NCM. The subsequent degradation of PET released active free radicals and reductive gases, which captured oxygen atoms and reduced the transition metals.

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  1. Nature Reviews Electrical Engineering https://www.nature.com/natrevelectreng/

    Lishu Wu

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  1. Lishu Wu
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Correspondence to Lishu Wu.

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Wu, L. Efficient metal recovery from lithium-ion batteries using plastics. Nat Rev Electr Eng 1, 767 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44287-024-00127-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s44287-024-00127-5

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