A Sustainable Process for the Simultaneous Delamination and Leaching of Cathodes from End-of-Life Li Ion Batteries

The increasing demand for Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) in several applications, from consumer electronics to electric vehicles (EVs), has led to a substantial rise in their production, posing serious risks in the supply of critical raw materials (CRMs, e.g.: Li, Ni, Co, and graphite). Additionally, an improper disposal of end-of-life (EoL) batteries can lead to environmental pollution and loss of technological value (e.g., burning of electrolyte and fluorinated binder) stressing the necessity for a sustainable recycling. Current methods involve shredding whole batteries into a black mass, from which the components are separated through pyrometallurgy (energy-intensive) or hydrometallurgy with inorganic acids (potentially harmful to environment and workers). However, a more refined approach to LIBs recycling involves the dismantling and the sorting of their components, allowing for a targeted extraction. Here, a recycling process for spent cathodes is presented, involving the delamination from the current collector and the leaching of the cathode active material (CAM) into the same citric acid (CA) solution; this also enables the recovery of PVDF and Carbon conducting filler as a residue of the leaching. Lastly, the metals recovered as precursors, are used to resynthesize fresh CAM, thus closing the recycling loop.