Recycling of lithium-ion batteries

Zorin, Anton ORCID: 0000-0001-9650-9183 (2025). Recycling of lithium-ion batteries. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.

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Abstract

The demand for electric vehicles has greatly increased, driven by the public’s awareness of global warming and electric vehicles being part of the solution to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that are the cause of it. Although electric vehicles have been shown to be better for the environment it is important that they are treated correctly at the end of life as they contain many valuable and hard-to-extract materials within them, particularly within the battery pack and the cells therein. Recycling of cells has the potential to further boost the environmental credentials of electric vehicles (and other battery-powered devices). Recycling of cells already takes place and more processes are being developed, however, more work is still needed. The work presented in this thesis focuses on understanding how we can move towards zero-waste recycling processes. To understand how we recycle lithium-ion batteries, we need to understand the current composition and construction of the different cells, and if we are to improve our materials reclamation yield, and if there is any scope for an improved design for disassembly.

Chapter 4 characterises three cell types: cylindrical (end-of-life samples), pouch (production scrap samples) and prismatic (end-of-life samples). Indicative of the cell types in the current market. A complete cell tear-down and cathode materials evaluation is performed with a critique and discussion of how improvements can be made for design for disassembly and recycling. This is the first time that a range of commercial cells have been compared using the same suit of techniques, and their recyclability has been the focus.

In Chapter 5, this work will look at organic acids. Can these be used for the direct recycling of cathode black mass? For this to be the case the recovered black mass must have greater capacity than the End-of-life cell (107.62 mAh/g as found by preliminary testing). Otherwise, can organic acids be used as a pre-treatment step for valorisation and hydro-metallurgical treatments? For this, the leaching of metals must be controlled. Depending on the desired outcome various acids were successful for example, if retaining nickel in the black mass is the goal, succinic acid is the most effective for separation. Conversely, if cobalt retention is preferred, citric acid should be used. If optimizing first-cycle capacity is the objective, acetic acid yields the best performance.

Chapter 6, the use of DMSO, (which is considered a green solvent, but still carries some challenges such as its ability to permeate the skin barrier and carry through transition metals) is investigated to further improve valorisation of the cathodic black mass using solvent delamination to enable better valorisation by avoiding leaching if possible. Stirring and ultrasonication were used to agitate the solution at a range of temperatures to find the optimum processing conditions for the release of black mass from the current collector. This is the first time DMSO has been used in the recovery and recycling of black mass, and the first time that optimisation has been carried out on this system.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.)

Award Type:

Doctorates > Ph.D.

Supervisor(s):

Supervisor(s)	Email	ORCID
Kendrick, Emma	UNSPECIFIED	orcid.org/0000-0002-4219-964X
Reed, Daniel	UNSPECIFIED	orcid.org/0000-0002-5147-6346
Sommerville, Roberto	UNSPECIFIED	orcid.org/0000-0002-6676-1262
Gastol, Dominika	UNSPECIFIED	orcid.org/0000-0002-6043-5853