The Future of Lithium-Ion Battery Recycling: A Review of Cutting-Edge Technologies

The rapid increase in Electric Vehicles as well as portable electronic device (Mobile and laptop) sales blazed an explicit discussion regarding the availability of critical metals. The impending threat to the environment and public health posed by the end of life of these lithium ion batteries (LIBs), which contain heavy metals and other harmful compounds, calls for a suitable strategy. Generally, spent LIBs are composed of 2-25 wt. % Co, 5- 10 wt. % Ni, 3-5 wt. % Li, 10-15 wt. % Mn, along with aluminum, copper, Iron and plastics. These end-of-life LIBs have the option of being recycled, which can ultimately lower the cost of producing new LIBs which benefits the economic, preventing the environmental pollution from harmful components, conserving and preserving natural resources. The four primary methods of recycling lithium ion batteries (LIBs) include mechanical treatment, pyrometallurgy, hydrometallurgy and bio treatment, among which hydrometallurgy dominates all the approaches being optimal, environmental friendly and recover high purity metals with low energy consumption as compare to pyrometallurgy process due to loss of Li, Al and Mn in slag. Hydrometallurgical processes involve various acids like organic and inorganic as leaching agents. However, with organic acids, there has been evidences of selective recovery of metals which can be extracted under reducing environment; however separation turns out to be tedious task. We aim to present the current demand and supply of these critical metals and develop a closed loop recycling technology to extract these metals from end-of-life LIBs and also focuses on their economic and environmental impact, in vogue.