Waste to Treasure: Regeneration of Porous Co-Based Catalysts from Spent LiCoO₂ Cathode Materials for an Efficient Oxygen Evolution Reaction

Abstract

The increasing demand for portable electronic devices and electric vehicles (EVs) has triggered the rapid growth of the rechargeable Li-ion battery (LIB) market. However, in the near future, it is predicted that a large amount of spent LIBs will be scrapped, imposing huge pressure on environmental protection and resource reclaiming. The effective recycling or regeneration of the spent LIBs not only relieves the environmental burdens but also avoids the waste of valuable metal resources. Herein, a porous Co9S8/Co3O4 heterostructure is successfully synthesized from the spent LiCoO2 (LCO) cathode materials via a conventional hydrometallurgy and sulfidation process. The fabricated Co9S8/Co3O4 catalyst exhibits high catalytic activity toward oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in an alkaline solution, with an overpotential of 274 mV to achieve the current density of 10 mA cm–2 and a Tafel slope of 48.7 mV dec–1. This work demonstrates a facile regeneration process of Co-based electrocatalysts from the spent LiCoO2 cathode materials for efficient oxygen evolution reaction.

Self-Vulcanized Heterogeneous Interface Derived from Organic Cobalt Residue for Rechargeable Zinc–Air Batteries

“…Moreover, the peaks at 784.00 and 802.50 eV were assigned as the satellite peaks of Co 2+ . 32,33 Compared to CDC-600, the peaks of Co 3+ 2p 3/2 /2p 1/2 and Co 2+ 2p 3/2 /2p 1/2 in CDC-800 exhibited positive shifts of 0.05/ 0.04 and 0.19/0.30 eV, respectively, and CDC-1000 had positive shifts of 0.14/0.06 and 0.51/0.60 eV, respectively. These results indicate that an increase in the self-vulcanization temperature can enhance the electronic interactions at the Co 1−x S/Co 9 S 8 heterogeneous interface.…”

Upcycling of Cathode Materials from Spent Lithium-Ion Batteries: Progress, Challenges, and Outlook

“…61 Huang et al 62 reported the transition of spent LiCoO 2 cathode into 2D ultrathin CoOOH nanosheets by using a positive-bias driven exfoliation process due to the synergy of phase conversion and lattice expansion, which exhibited an overpotential of 301 mV@10 mA cm −2 and Tafel slope of 53.8 mV dec −1 . Porous Co 9 S 8 /Co 3 O 4 heterostructure 63 was prepared by a conventional hydrometallurgy and sulfidation process from spent LiCoO 2 cathode, which exhibited an overpotential of 274 mV@10 mA cm −2 and Tafel slope of 48.7 mV dec −1 . Cui et al 64 converted spent LiFePO 4 cathode to defect-rich NiFe oxy/hydroxide catalyst through a wetness impregnation method, and the overpotential at 10 mA cm −2 was 285 mV and Tafel slope was 45 mV dec −1 .…”

Waste to wealth: direct utilization of spent materials for electrocatalysis and energy storage

“…The combination of graded porosity and heterostructure promoted OER performance, exhibiting an overpotential of 274 mV at 10 mA cm −2 and a Tafel slope of 48.7 mV. 77 In addition, LiFePO 4 in spent batteries can also be regenerated into efficient electrocatalysts, successfully achieving the functional transformation from battery electrode materials to electrocatalysts. Cui et al adopted a wetness impregnation method to transfer spent LiFePO 4 into a high-performance NiFe oxy/hydroxide OER electrocatalyst.…”