Recycling and Recovery of Cathode Materials from Spent Lithium-Ion Batteries by Hydrometallurgy: A Review

With the popularization of electric vehicles, lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) have begun to be used in large quantities, and the scale of the waste batteries is large and growing rapidly. So, the environmental pressure faced and the economic benefits contained in waste batteries are rapidly increasing every year. The valuable metals (e.g., Ni, Co and Mn) in the cathodes of LIBs are important non-renewable resources with high recovery value. So, the recovery and reuse of valuable metals in waste LIBs have constituted an important issue of concern. This review focuses on the hydrometallurgy of spent-LIB cathode, the extraction of valuable metals (solvent extraction and filtration), and co-precipitation methods. A perspective and outlook associated with the challenges and limitations of current hydrometallurgy research is proposed for breakthrough development of such technology for future industrialization.