Direct Recycling Strategy for Spent Lithium Iron Phosphate Powder: an Efficient and Wastewater-Free Process

Abstract

Due to its high safety and long cyclic life, the LiFePO4 (LFP) battery has received numerous attention and has been widely used in electric vehicles. Therefore, it is urgent to develop advanced technology to recycle spent LFP batteries to avoid energy exhaustion and protect the environment. Here, we report a direct regeneration strategy for spent LFP powder based on the wet full-component leaching method and traditional LFP production process. Specifically, combined leaching of spent LFP powder using H3PO4 and citric acid was done; meanwhile, the leaching solution is used as the precursor to regenerate LFP cathode materials by a typical LFP spray-drying process. The recovery rates of Li, Fe, and P were above 95%. Effective separation of Al elements could be realized by pretreatment of LFP with a low concentration of LiOH solution, and the Al removal rate can reach 89%. The LFP material regenerated through prealuminum removal demonstrated excellent electrochemical properties, with a discharge capacity of 123.3 mA h g–1 at a rate of 5 C. After 600 cycles at 1 C, its capacity retention was found to be as high as 97.3%. Moreover, the economic benefit analysis indicates that the progress is rewarding. This novel and simple method has made a breakthrough in the limitations of traditional LFP-recovery process, eliminating the complicated chemical precipitation process. Meanwhile, it realizes the direct recovery of LFP and eliminates wastewater at the origin, which is expected to be widely used in industry.

Al/Ti Removal from the Sulfate Leachate of the Spent LiFePO4/C Powder through High-Temperature Co-precipitation Triggered by Fe(III)

“…The peaks of P 2p and O 1s were further fitted to analyze the chemical composition of the precipitate. The P 2p spectrum was deconvoluted into two Gaussian peaks labeled P 2p 3/2 and P 2p 1/2 (133.7 and 133.9 eV, respectively), 41 and their experimentally observed area ratio were close to the 1:2 ratio expected (Figure 5e). 42 As shown by the fitting of the spectral data in Figure 5f, an excellent quantitative fit of O 1s can be accomplished with line shape components at binding energies of 532.9, 532.2, and 531.3 eV, which can be assigned to the bridging (P−O−P) and the nonbridging (the anionic and partially double-bonded) oxygen atoms, respectively.…”

High Electrochemical Performance Recycling Spent LiFePO4 Materials through the Preoxidation Regeneration Strategy

“…LiFePO 4 (LFP) accounts for one-third of the LIB market on account of its safety, environmental protection, and low cost. ,, With the rapid growth of the EV industry, millions of LFP batteries are nearing retirement to be disposed of properly. – In recent years, a lot of research has been done on recycling spent LFP (SLFP) batteries. Pyrometallurgy , and hydrometallurgy – are the most common methods for the recovery of spent LIB. However, pyrometallurgy is a complex process that consumes a lot of energy.…”

A Critical Review on the Recycling Strategy of Lithium Iron Phosphate from Electric Vehicles

“…As one of the first cathode materials commercialized for electric vehicles on a large scale, lithium iron phosphate (LFP) is in urgent need of recycling while being gradually retired for the early electric cars and buses. [11][12][13] For a period of time, the disposal issue with LFP batteries seemed to be solved because the retired power batteries could be used for stationary electricity storage. However, as the safety risks of reused batteries still required further technical breakthroughs, the cascade utilization projects are temporally halted and thus leaving recycling the optimal choice to deal with the retired LFP EV batteries.…”