2023-08-29 22:00:00
Lithium-ion batteries are currently the most widely used electrochemical energy accumulators, particularly in the fields of electronics and electric vehicles. Their high mass and volume energy density as well as their very good cycling behavior make them the most suitable systems for supplying mobile energy at the lowest cost.
Their consumption will increase tenfold in the next ten years due to the development of electric vehicles. But this raises the question of the availability of raw materials, which implies mandatory recycling so as not to deplete all the world’s resources. The development of battery manufacturing plants in Europe also poses the problem of the local supply of resources. The recycling of lithium batteries represents a major challenge for our industrial development for the years to come because it reduces the supply risk.
Unfortunately, the recycling of these products can be dangerous due in particular to the risk of explosion or fire, the toxicity of the metals treated. At first, we limited ourselves to simple methods such as pyrometallurgy, making it possible to eliminate waste while recovering only the most expensive metals (cobalt, nickel) and the most easily recoverable for re-injecting them into the metallurgy. But, these methods are energy-intensive and other elements see their value greatly increase. Also the increasing flow of used batteries makes the emergence of closed-loop recycling (of batteries to remake batteries) economically viable. The constraints will therefore be to recycle more batteries in number, to improve the recycling rate of each battery by exhaustively recovering all the elements to reuse them in new batteries. However, the manufacture of batteries requires high purity products whose separation-purification and remanufacturing sequences will have to be adapted to obtain a completely closed cycle. Finally, standardization will allow complex and automated recycling sequences including the recovery of elements piece by piece to repair or regenerate them before reinjecting them into new batteries (direct recycling).
It is therefore necessary to understand the risks and particularities of battery recycling and the ways offered to carry out a more virtuous recycling, less costly in energy, emissions and more exhaustive.
This article will discuss the constitution of lithium batteries and then review the complementary dismantling techniques, heat treatments (pyrometallurgy) and solution separation routes (hydrometallurgy). The future objective is to design easily recyclable batteries with an exhaustive recovery of all the elements and the methods of recovery by separations and regenerations without totally destroying the materials (direct recycling) will finally be presented as perspectives.
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