Towards a More Sustainable Lithium‐Ion Battery Future: Recycling LIBs from Electric Vehicles

Abstract

Invited for this month's cover picture is the group of Electrochemical Science and Engineering at Imperial College London including Titirici Group. The cover picture shows a schematic illustration of batteries recycling. Read the full text of the Review at 10.1002/batt.202000146.

China’s electric vehicle and climate ambitions jeopardized by surging critical material prices

“…It is highly likely that this competition will push up the prices of these critical materials far beyond our current expectations. What makes the competition tougher is that a number of these materials are concentrated in a few countries in politically volatile regions and produced by a handful number of companies 46 – 48 . Geopolitical tensions and socioeconomic unrests in the producing regions would disturb the material supply and result in significant price volatility 49 , 50 .…”

Surface Spinel-Coated and Polyanion-Doped Co-Free Li-Rich Layered Oxide Cathode for High-Performance Lithium-Ion Batteries

“…4 For LIBs to be applied in EVs, the key is longterm endurance and safety performance. 5,6 For instance, LiFePO 4 is widely used in EVs because of the fact that it has good thermal stability, but the problem of low energy density still remains. 7 LiNi x Co y Mn z O 2 (NCM) and LiNi x Co y Al z O 2 (NCA) are also widely used; unfortunately, these cathode materials provide neither the high discharge capacity nor the operating voltage required by the next generation of EVs.…”

“…Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) play an irreplaceable role in our everyday life, because of their lack of a memory effect and their environmental friendliness. − Especially, with the rapid growth in the market of electric vehicles (EVs), LIBs have had a higher requirement for industrial application in recent years . For LIBs to be applied in EVs, the key is longterm endurance and safety performance. , For instance, LiFePO 4 is widely used in EVs because of the fact that it has good thermal stability, but the problem of low energy density still remains . LiNi x Co y Mn z O 2 (NCM) and LiNi x Co y Al z O 2 (NCA) are also widely used; unfortunately, these cathode materials provide neither the high discharge capacity nor the operating voltage required by the next generation of EVs. − Therefore, higher-energy-density cathode materials are urgently needed in the future of EVs.…”