Waste minimization and recovery of valuable metals from spent lithium-ion batteries – a review

Abstract

Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) have received increasing attention in recent years due to their prominent applications in consumer electronics and they may also reduce our dependence on oil, by their use in electric vehicles (EVs). This paper selectively reviews the existing recycling technologies for treating the spent LIBs in order to recover the valuable products and an illustration of combined recycling processes is presented. The primary LIBs contain toxic materials which may lead to thermal runaway and exothermic reactions. Hence an emphasis has been placed on the safety tests that need to be monitored in these batteries especially their use in hybrid EVs. All types of physical, chemical, biological and electrochemical methods have been reviewed with respect to recovery of some valuable metals such as cobalt, nickel, manganese, etc. The article concludes with a recent investigation of the recovery of valuable metals from spent batteries in the form of nanomaterials and its implications for the future. A brief discussion about the cost of LIBs and its patent publications have been done in order to assess the scope of LIBs’ applications in EVs.

Keywords:

• spent LIBs
• recycling techniques
• acid leaching
• electrochemical method
• nanomaterials