Facile and sustainable recovery of spent LiFePO4 battery cathode materials in a Ca(ClO)2 system

Gongqi Liu; Zejian Liu; Jing Gu; Shujia Wang; Yufeng Wu; Haoran Yuan; Yong Chen

doi:10.1039/D3GC04418A

Facile and sustainable recovery of spent LiFePO₄ battery cathode materials in a Ca(ClO)₂ system†

Gongqi Liu,^ab Zejian Liu,^abc Jing Gu,^abc Shujia Wang,^a Yufeng Wu,*^d Haoran Yuan*^abc and Yong Chen^ab

* Corresponding authors

^a Guangzhou Institute of Energy Conversion, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Guangzhou 510640, PR China
E-mail: yuanhr@ms.giec.ac.cn

^b Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of New and Renewable Energy Research and Development, Guangzhou 510640, PR China

^c School of Engineering Science, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, PR China

^d Institute of Circular Economy, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing 100124, China
E-mail: wuyufeng3r@126.com

Abstract

Spent LiFePO₄ batteries are gradually increasing in popularity and interest, and their stable and insoluble olive-shaped structure poses a great challenge for the sustainable recycling of Li. In this study, a simple and sustainable Ca(ClO)₂ system was proposed for the recovery of spent LiFePO₄ battery cathode materials. The effects of both mechanochemical activation and hydrometallurgical enhanced leaching on the deconstruction of LiFePO₄ and the leaching rates of Li and Fe in the Ca(ClO)₂ system were studied. Compared with mechanochemical activation, Ca(ClO)₂-assisted hydrometallurgical enhanced leaching can simultaneously achieve the separation and enrichment of the target components Li⁺ and Fe³⁺ and the Ca²⁺ impurities. The transformation path and reaction mechanism of LiFePO₄ in the Ca(ClO)₂ system were proposed based on the phase composition and micromorphology of the reaction products. In addition, the economic evaluation results show that Ca(ClO)₂-assisted hydrometallurgical enhanced leaching has a high recovery economy. The developed Ca(ClO)₂ system realizes the strong dissolution of spent LiFePO₄ battery cathode materials and the sustainable comprehensive recovery of valuable components.

Supplementary files

Article information

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/D3GC04418A
Article type: Paper
Submitted: 15 Nov 2023
Accepted: 29 Jan 2024
First published: 31 Jan 2024
This article is Open Access

Download Citation

Green Chem., 2024,26, 3317-3328

Permissions

Request permissions

Facile and sustainable recovery of spent LiFePO₄ battery cathode materials in a Ca(ClO)₂ system

G. Liu, Z. Liu, J. Gu, S. Wang, Y. Wu, H. Yuan and Y. Chen, Green Chem., 2024, 26, 3317 DOI: 10.1039/D3GC04418A

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications, without requesting further permission from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given and it is not used for commercial purposes.

To request permission to reproduce material from this article in a commercial publication, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party commercial publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Green Chemistry