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Recycling of Lithium-Ion Batteries: Current Status and Future Outlook

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Special Issue Information
Keywords
Published Papers

A special issue of Batteries (ISSN 2313-0105). This special issue belongs to the section "Battery Processing, Manufacturing and Recycling".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (3 April 2023) | Viewed by 12600

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Special Issue Editor

Dr. Farouk Tedjar

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Energy Research Institute, Nanyang Technological University, 1 Cleantech Loop, Singapore 634672, Singapore
Interests: recycling; Li-ion battery; process review; hydrometallurgy; direct recycling

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Concerns about energy linked to a potential “peak oil” have led to fuel-saving efforts and the utilization of clean energy. These concerns are further complicated by the emerging challenges of climate change and global warming. Consequently, reducing greenhouse gases and CO2 emissions has presented an important challenge in the last three decades. Among all resources, metals are the third most commonly used, coming just after water and energy. Some countries have witnessed supply issues for strategic and critical metals. The scarcity of these resources has been complicated by another geopolitical factor (ownership of important and available parts of some metals). We have further observed a transition from a traditional linear economy to a new mode of resource flow based on a circular economy. Among the energy sector, batteries have seen significant commercial growth in recent decades due to the widespread use and growth of e-devices using lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). However, the dark side of this progress is seen in the environment impact and scarcity of resources. To maintain a sustainable and safe supply chain, a circular economy (based on “the production of goods, the use of said goods by society, and recycling these goods at the end of life”) should be implemented. The conversion of produced/consumed wastes to secondary raw materials requires cleaner processes. This conversion of waste into secondary raw materials is the basis of the “Urban Mine” as waste converted to new “Urban Ores”. The circular Economy and “Urban Mine” are two key factors to achieving sustainability in any industry, including the battery industry. Safe, efficient and sustainable technologies for recycling are urgently needed. Emerging technologies must operate without creating additional environment impact while using minimal energy and having a low carbon print. Recycling approaches must prioritize low carbon emissions as well as a high recycling rate for not only expensive critical metals but also other strategic compounds, such as manganese, copper, graphite, fluoride and phosphate (in the case of LFP-based chemistry).

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

Direct approach to recycling lithium-ion batteries;
Recycling with sorting between basic materials of cells;
Dismantling and safely opening EV batteries;
Discharge and diagnosis of EV batteries at end of life;
Second life of batteries;
Production of precursors for active materials for LIBs;
Closed-loop process for converting used batteries to new electrodes;
Life cycle assessment of process for recycling LIBs.

Dr. Farouk Tedjar
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

recycling LIBs
direct recycling of LIBs
the end of life and second life of batteries
closed-loop processes
life cycle assessment

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

Jump to: Review

14 pages, 1728 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Material and Waste Flow Analysis for Environmental and Economic Impact Assessment of Inorganic Acid Leaching Routes for Spent Lithium Batteries’ Cathode Scraps

by Yi-Chin Tang, Jian-Zhi Wang, Chih-Ming Chou and Yun-Hwei Shen

Batteries 2023, 9(4), 207; https://doi.org/10.3390/batteries9040207 - 30 Mar 2023

Viewed by 2085

Abstract

With the development trend and technological progress of lithium batteries, the battery market is booming. This means that the demand for lithium batteries has increased significantly, resulting in a large number of discarded lithium batteries. The consumption of plenty of lithium batteries may lead to the scarcity and expending of relevant raw material metal resources, as well as serious heavy metal environmental pollution. Therefore, it is of great significance to recycle valuable metal resources from discarded lithium batteries. The proper recycling of these valuable metals can reduce the shortage of mineral resources and environmental hazards caused by a large number of scrapped vehicle batteries. Recently, different systematic approaches have been developed for spent lithium battery recovery. However, most of these approaches do not account for the hidden costs incurred from various processing steps. This work is determined by the concept of material flow cost accounting (MFCA). Hence, in this research, a MFCA-based approach is developed for the leaching process of spent lithium batteries recovery, taking into consideration the hidden costs embedded in process streams. In this study, hydrochloric acid had the worst leaching efficiency due to its high solid-to-liquid ratio and the lowest acid concentration, so it was excluded in the first stage selection. It takes TWD 16.03 and TWD 24.10 to leach 10 g of lithium battery powder with sulfuric acid and nitric acid, respectively. The final sulfuric acid was the acid solution with the highest leaching efficiency and relatively low cost among inorganic acids. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recycling of Lithium-Ion Batteries: Current Status and Future Outlook)

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Figure 1

29 pages, 47772 KiB

Open AccessArticle

An Accurate Activate Screw Detection Method for Automatic Electric Vehicle Battery Disassembly

by Huaicheng Li, Hengwei Zhang, Yisheng Zhang, Shengmin Zhang, Yanlong Peng, Zhigang Wang, Huawei Song and Ming Chen

Batteries 2023, 9(3), 187; https://doi.org/10.3390/batteries9030187 - 21 Mar 2023

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 2370

Abstract

With the increasing popularity of electric vehicles, the number of end-of-life (EOF) electric vehicle batteries (EVBs) is also increasing day by day. Efficient dismantling and recycling of EVBs are essential to ensure environmental protection. There are many types of EVBs with complex structures, and the current automatic dismantling line is immature and lacks corresponding dismantling equipment. This makes it difficult for some small parts to be disassembled precisely. Screws are used extensively in batteries to fix or connect modules in EVBs. However, due to the small size of screws and differences in installation angles, screw detection is a very challenging task and a significant obstacle to automatic EVBs disassembly. This research proposes a systematic method to complete screw detection called “Active Screw Detection”. The experimental results show that with the YOLOX-s model, the improved YOLOX model achieves

95.92 %

and

92.14 %

accuracy for both

m A P_{50}

and

m A P_{75}

positioning after autonomous adjustment of the robotic arm attitude. Compared to the method without autonomous adjustment of the robotic arm,

m A P_{50}

and

m A P_{75}

improved by

62.81 %

and

57.67 %

, respectively. In addition, the improved YOLOX model improves

m A P_{50}

and

m A P_{75}

0.19 %

and

3.59 %

, respectively, compared to the original YOLOX model. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recycling of Lithium-Ion Batteries: Current Status and Future Outlook)

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Figure 1

Review

Jump to: Research

25 pages, 4691 KiB

Open AccessReview

A Systematic Review on Lithium-Ion Battery Disassembly Processes for Efficient Recycling

by Shubiao Wu, Nicolaj Kaden and Klaus Dröder

Batteries 2023, 9(6), 297; https://doi.org/10.3390/batteries9060297 - 29 May 2023

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 7405

Abstract

Recycling plays a crucial role in achieving a sustainable production chain for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), as it reduces the demand for primary mineral resources and mitigates environmental pollution caused by improper disposal. Disassembly of the LIBs is typically the preliminary step preceding chemical recovery operations, facilitating early separation of components consisting of different materials. Despite that extensive research has been conducted on the chemical processes involved in the recycling of LIBs, systematic studies on disassembly processes in the recycling process are relatively scarce. In this research, a systematic review was conducted on the publications from major databases, such as Scopus, SpringerLink, and others, to explore the current state of disassembly processes in LIBs’ recycling. The results emphasize disassembly as a crucial process for achieving a high material separation rate and ensuring a high degree of purity of the recycled active material. Moreover, automated disassembly can significantly raise productivity and reduce disassembly costs. Thus, it improves disassembly efficiency and increases economic as well as environmental benefits. Most researchers have focused on disassembly at the pack or module level. Investigation into extending the disassembly depth from cell to individual components is limited, particularly in automated approaches. Therefore, further research is highly recommended to explore the feasibility and potential of novel automated disassembly procedures at the cell level. This can contribute to improving the efficiency and sustainability of the recycling process for LIBs. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recycling of Lithium-Ion Batteries: Current Status and Future Outlook)

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