Tuesday, 31 May 2022
West Ballroom B/C/D (Vancouver Convention Center)
The surge of electric vehicle (EVs) adoption means imminent large amounts of lithium-ion battery waste will be generated. The need for recycled Li-ion batteries (LIBs) material is pivotal for the sustainability of the renewable energy industry. The recycling process needs to be both economically and environmentally conscious. The 3 recycling methods being used today are pyrometallurgical, hydrometallurgical, and direct recycling. Pyrometallurgical is an expensive and energy-intensive process due to high energy requirements to reduce the End-Of-Life (EoL) Cathode materials. The component metal oxides are reduced to an alloy of Cobalt, Nickel, Manganese, Copper, and Iron. The hydrometallurgical process involves the use of aqueous solutions to leach the desired metals from EoL materials. This process is still expensive and has a considerable amount of waste generated from sintering, acid leaching, and chemical precipitation. Direct recycling on the other hand is cheaper and generates the least amounts of waste. Redox mechanism method for direct recycling is explored in this work to relithiate EoL NMC622 cathode material. The quinone-based redox mediators used are 3,5-di-tert-butyl-o-benzoquinone (DTBQ) and 2,5-di-tert-butylhydroquinone (DTBHQ). The redox mediator is reduced in the reaction and EoL is oxidized. These compounds can shuttle the charges very fast between lithium metal and the EoL. Analysis and characterization of the relithiated NMC622 cathode material are carried out to compare with pristine NMC622 cathode material. In the previous work, ICP-OES results show the ratio of lithium in the recycled NMC111 and pristine NMC111 material are comparable. The SEM morphology showed that the structure of the material is not changed after relithiation process. This approach will potentially pave way for quality material recovery at a low cost. This project is part of ReCell which is a collaborative effort to develop efficient and economical recycle and reuse methods for EoL battery cathodes.