Recycled Lithium Batteries v. New Batteries

Lithium-ion batteries are at the heart of nearly every electric vehicle, laptop, and smartphone, and they are essential to storing renewable energy in the face of a climate emergency. But all of the world’s current mining operations cannot extract enough lithium and other key minerals to meet skyrocketing demand for these batteries. Establishing new mines is an expensive, years-long effort. And mining also creates a host of environmental headaches—such as depleting local water resources and polluting the nearby region with runoff debris—that has led to protests against new mines. All of this means the ability to recycle existing batteries is crucial for sustainably shifting the global energy system. But recycling lithium-ion batteries have only recently made commercial inroads. Battery manufacturers have hesitated over concerns that recycled products may be lower in quality than those built from newly mined minerals, potentially leading to shorter battery life or damage to the battery’s innards. Consequences could be serious, particularly in an application such as an electric vehicle.

But new research published in Joule has hit upon what experts describe as a more elegant recycling method that refurbishes the cathode—the carefully crafted crystal that is the lithium-ion battery’s most expensive component and key to supplying the proper voltage. The researchers found that batteries they made with their new cathode-recycling technique perform just as well as those with a cathode made from scratch. Yan Wang, a materials science professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and co-author of the new study, started researching battery recycling 11 years ago. The Department of Energy estimates the battery market may grow 10-fold over the next decade. To ease the market’s growing pains. The DOE funded the new research as part of its massive effort to spur large-scale battery recycling innovations in the U.S.

When a lithium-ion battery is providing power, a cluster of lithium ions moves from one crystalline “cage” (the anode) to another (the cathode). The most common methods currently used to recycle these batteries involve dismantling and shredding the whole battery, then either melting it all down or dissolving it in acid. The result is a black mass—with a texture can that can vary from powder to goo—from which chemical elements or simple compounds can be salvaged. Those recovered products can then go through the same commercial manufacturing process that newly mined elements do to make cathodes.

Wang and his colleagues use a very similar process—but instead of completely breaking the battery down to its constituent chemical elements, their technique keeps some of the old cathode’s crucial composition intact. After they shred the battery, they physically remove the less expensive bits (such as the electronic circuits and steel battery casing) and recycle them separately. What is left is mainly the cathode material; they dissolve this in acid and then remove impurities. Next, they carefully add just a touch of fresh elements that compose the cathode, such as nickel and cobalt, to ensure the ratio of ingredients is just right—another distinction from common recycling methods. After a few more steps, the result is an effectively refreshed cathode powder, composed of tiny crystalline particles that can be stuck onto a metal strip and placed in a “new” battery.