Study of the behaviour of cations in leaching of NCA lithium-ion batteries by electrodialysis

End-of-life lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) present an opportunity to generate a circular economy through recycling. One of the techniques that can contribute to the purification of leached batteries is electrodialysis. In this work, we present a study of current variation in relation to monovalent (Li), divalent (Ni and Co) and trivalent (Al) cations from the synthetic solution of an NCA-type lithium-ion battery leachate, using electrodialysis membranes (HDX-100 and HDX-200) at three different current densities (12.5, 18.75 and 25.0 mA/cm²) at room temperature (25°C). After the experiments carried out, it was shown that the concentration of metals in solution influences the separation of equal charges, where increasing the current has no influence on the separation of the metals studied, but that the application of cycles with the cation concentrate generated can lead to the separation of Ni without the addition of any chemical reagent. These results presents more expressive due to the high concentration of Ni (26.1 g/L) compared to the other elements, which becomes an advantage in the application of electrodialysis cycles.<b>Highlights</b>The use of a leaching solution from NCA-type lithium-ion batteries can be used to separate nickel by electrodialysis;Increasing the current density in electrodialysis does not interfere with the selectivity of the different valences of the cations;Carrying out more cycles can contribute to greater purity of the nickel solution for electrodialysis;No chemical reagents were used to obtain a purity of 70% in a single 12-hour cycle.