Work

Water-Based Electrode Manufacturing and Direct Recycling of Lithium-Ion Battery Electrodes—A Green and Sustainable Manufacturing System

Year: 2020

Type: article

Abstract: It is critical to develop a low-cost and environmentally friendly system to manufacture and recycle lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) as the demand on LIBs keeps increasing dramatically. Conventional LIB cathodes are manufactured using N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone as the solvent, which is expensive, highly toxic, flammable, and energy intensive to produce and recover. Ideally, a close-loop industrial supply chain should be built, in which the batteries are manufactured, market harvested, and recycled with minimal external toxic solvent through the whole system. This work demonstrates a green and more sustainable manufacturing method for LIBs where no hazardous organic solvent is used during electrode manufacturing and recycling. The electrodes fabricated via water-based processing demonstrate comparable rate performance and cycle life to the ones from conventional solvent-based processing. Utilization of a water-soluble binder enables recovering the cathode compound from spent electrodes using water, which is successfully regenerated to deliver comparable electrochemical performance to the pristine one.

Source: iScience

DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2020.101081

Authors: Jianlin Li, Yingqi Lu, Tairan Yang, Dayang Ge, David L. Wood, Zheng Li

Institutions: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Virginia Tech

Language: English

Topic: Extraction and Separation Processes

Subfield: Metals and Alloys

Field: Materials Science

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDGs: Responsible consumption and production, Affordable and clean energy

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $3,000