Lithium-Ion Battery Recycling: Metal Recovery from Electrolyte and Cathode Materials by Electrodialysis
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
In this manuscript entitled “Lithium-ion battery recycling: metal recovery from electrolyte and cathode materials by electrodialysis”，，the use of electrodialysis to extract lithium from electrolytes contained in lithium-ion batteries and to selectively extract lithium, cobalt, nickel, and manganese from a synthesized aqueous solution representative of a leaching solution of spent cathode material is studied.
The author found through research electrodialysis can be used to extract and concentrate lithium from aqueous effluent arising from lithium-ion batteries shredding under water. At the same time, the use of electrodialysis for metal recovery will be accompanied by other problems, such as the generation and treatment of HF, and the prevention of metal hydrolysis.
In a word, these results are not properly organized. The reviewer intends to recommend a major revision. The article as its present form can not be published as an article in METALS. Maybe, a letter or a technical note is more suitable. Otherwise, the reviewer should replan the experiment, organize the results and the discussion section. The following are comments from the reviewer.
1.The abstract is not concise and comprehensive enough, and the focus of the article is not prominent enough, which can not reflect the content of the full text well. The absence of these sections affects the readability of this article.The relationship between electrodialysis and metal recovery should be more emphasized in the description of the abstract.
2.There are few valuable references in this article. It is suggested to add more references related to the topic of this paper.
3.The reviewer suggested that the drawing in the article should be adjusted more meaningfully, especially Figure 1 and Figure 8, which made the paper more readable and enjoyable.
4.Electrodialysis is a mature technology in the field of wastewater treatment and is widely used in the field of metal recovery. The author applied electrodialysis to the recovery of metals from batteries, which is not so different from the recovery of metals from wastewater in principle. In addition, the use of electrodialysis to recover metal will produce secondary pollution and other problems. The reviewer hopes that the author can give reasonable explanations and solutions.
5.As shown in Figure 8, the overall process is complex and requires pretreatment to prevent metal hydrolysis, all of which limit the industrial application of electrodialysis in metal recovery. The reviewer hopes that the author can improve the process or propose more effective methods for these problems.
Author Response
Thank you very much for your very valuable comments which has greatly improved the paper. We have taken into account all your comments. Please, find attached our replies to your comments.
Regards,
Alexandre Chagnes
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Review of paper ‘Lithium-ion battery recycling: metal recovery from electrolyte and cathode materials by electrodialysis’ prepared by Soumaya Gmar, Laurence Muhr, Florence Lutin and Alexandre Chagnes.
The paper Metals-1993979 presents the method of the use of batteries as secondary sources of valuable metals in line with recent trends in the circular economy. I have some suggestions that authors may consider before publishing this work:
1. In the paper it should be made very clear in both the title, abstract as well as in the paper whether the research was carried out on real or model solutions. It is well-known that moving to the real scale provides a range of research problems.
2. The authors use the word ‘extraction’ when using a chelating resin DOWEX M4195. Perhaps it is better to use sorption or adsorption? Ordinary extraction is used for techniques such as those proposed in the scheme for final extraction in a liquid-liquid system using an extractant Cyanex 272.
3. In the paper, of the 25 references, only 11 papers are from the last five years. Because of the current global circular economy trends, there is so much going on in this direction - a number of papers, patents and solutions are being developed. The authors should compare their proposed solution in more detail with those already described, in order to indicate the advantages and disadvantages of the proposed application of electrodialysis.
4. In conclusion, it is worth adding the most favorable conditions for electrodialysis, together with an indication of which factors should be taken into account in order to select optimal conditions depending, inter alia, on the presence of associated metal ions.
Author Response
Thank you very much for your valuable replies which greatly improved the quality of our paper. We have taken all your remarks.
Best regards,
Alexandre Chagnes.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The author has given appropriate responses to the concerns of reviewers in the revised manuscript, so it is recommended to be accepted and published by this journal.
