A Room‐Temperature Lithium‐Restocking Strategy for the Direct Reuse of Degraded LiFePO <sub>4</sub> Electrodes
Abstract The sustainable development of lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries calls for efficient recycling technologies for spent LFP (SLFP). Even for the advanced direct material regeneration (DMR) method, multiple steps including separation, regeneration, and electrode refabrication processes are still needed. To circumvent these intricacies, new regeneration methods that allow direct electrode reuse (DER) by rejuvenating SLFP electrodes without damaging its structure are desired. Here, a 0.1 M lithium triethyl borohydride/tetrahydrofuran solution, which has the proper reductive capability to reduce Fe 3+ in SLFP to Fe 2+ without alloying with the aluminum current collector, is selected as the lithiation/regeneration reagent to restock the Li loss and regenerate SLFP electrodes. By soaking the SLFP electrodes in the lithiation solution, we successfully rejuvenated the crystal structure and electrochemical activity of SLFP electrodes with structural integrity within only 6 minutes at room temperature. When being directly reused, the regenerated LFP electrodes deliver a high specific capacity of 162.6 mAh g −1 even after being exposed to air for 3 months. The DER strategy presents significant economic and environmental benefits compared with the DMR method. This research provides a timely and innovative solution for recycling spent blade batteries using large‐sized LFP electrodes, boosting the closed‐loop development of LFP batteries.
Authors
- Renyuan Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5979-5512)
- Jingrong Hou
- Dan Yang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6099-472X)
- Xiaoqun Qi
- Fang Zhou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8020-5318)
- Pei Hu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1363-9757)
- Zhenyan Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9122-2391)
- Long Qie (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1693-5911)
- Ying Yang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7964-9886)
- Yongsheng Ji (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7414-9719)
- Weichen Du
- Zhenglu Zhu
- Yunhui Huang
Institutions
- Tongji University (CN)
- Division of Materials Science and Engineering (AU)
- Huazhong University of Science and Technology (CN)
- Hubei University of Technology (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Angewandte Chemie
- Published
- 2024-10-02
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1002/ange.202409929
- Citations
- 1
- Primary Topic
- Extraction and Separation Processes
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.21