Upcycling of Acid-Leaching Solutions from Li-Ion Battery Waste Treatment through the Facile Synthesis of Magnetorheological Fluid

Abstract

The rapidly growing production and usage of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) dramatically raises the number of harmful wastes. Consequently, the LIBs waste management processes, taking into account reliability, efficiency, and sustainability criteria, became a hot issue in the context of environmental protection as well as the scarcity of metal resources. In this paper, we propose for the first time a functional material—a magnetorheological fluid (MRF) from the LIBs-based liquid waste containing heavy metal ions. At first, the spent battery waste powder was treated with acid-leaching, where the post-treatment acid-leaching solution (ALS) contained heavy metal ions including cobalt. Then, ALS was used during wet co-precipitation to obtain cobalt-doped superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) and as an effect, the harmful liquid waste was purified from cobalt. The obtained nanoparticles were characterized with SEM, TEM, XPS, and magnetometry. Subsequently, superparamagnetic nanoparticles sized 15 nm average in diameter and magnetization saturation of about 91 emu g−1 doped with Co were used to prepare the MRF that increases the viscosity by about 300% in the presence of the 100 mT magnetic fields. We propose a facile and cost-effective way to utilize harmful ALS waste and use them in the preparation of superparamagnetic particles to be used in the magnetorheological fluid. This work describes for the first time the second life of the battery waste in the MRF and a facile way to remove the harmful ingredients from the solutions obtained after the acid leaching of LIBs as an effective end-of-life option for hydrometallurgical waste utilization.

An Innovative Method of Leaching of Battery Masses Produced in the Processing of Li-Ion Battery Scrap

“…Analyzing the chemical compositions of the battery masses, it can be concluded that the composition of Material I differs significantly from the composition of the other materials, confirming a theory that cells from electric cars (EV) contain more nickel than cobalt, in comparison to cells from tablets, laptops and mobile phones-Table 2 [52,53].…”

“…For this reason, the industrial leaching method must take into account wide fluctuations in the composition of the leaching material, which in real conditions may be as follows (amount per ton of the processed battery mass): Al-35 kg; Co-69 kg; Cu-22 kg; Fe-20 kg; Li-24 kg; Mn-29 kg; Ni-100 kg; P-6 kg; F-29 kg; and C-340 kg. balt, in comparison to cells from tablets, laptops and mobile phones-Table 2 [52,53]. All materials contained a similar amount of carbon, ranging from 34.30% to 39.20%.…”

Ameliorating Phosphonic-Based Nonflammable Electrolytes Towards Safe and Stable Lithium Metal Batteries

“…Up to now, much effort has been devoted to the development of nonflammable electrolytes, such as ionic liquid [ 26 , 27 , 28 ], fluorine-containing solvent [ 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 ], organic phosphate ester solvent [ 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 ] and solid-state electrolytes (SSEs) [ 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 ]. Although SSEs are considered as alternative electrolytes for the development of LMBs, the low ionic conductivity and inferior interface compatibility limit their further large-scale application in high-energy-density LMBs [ 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 , 47 ]. Due to the superior flame retardation and cost effectiveness, organic phosphate became one of many promising solvents in nonflammable electrolytes [ 48 , 49 , 50 ]; however, most phosphate ester flame retardants usually show poor compatibility with lithium metal anodes.…”