Challenges and Opportunities of Recycling Cathode Materials from Spent Li-Ion Battery

With the rapid development of Electric Vehicles (EVs), the demand for Lithium-Ion Batteries (LIBs) has surged. However, the service life of LIBs is limited, and large-scale spent LIBs bring significant waste management and environmental challenges. Consequently, recycling spent LIBs has become an essential trend of resource recovery, environmental conservation, and social needs. The cathodes of LIBs contain valuable and resource-intensive materials like Lithium (Li), Cobalt (Co), Nickel (Ni), etc., which have substantial economic value and are a key focus in the recycling of LiB cathode materials. This paper provides an overview and assessment of conventional methods for recycling and reusing LIB cathode materials. The traditional LIBs recycling methods often involve extracting metal elements under high temperatures, and strong acid or alkali conditions, which might damage the environment easily, accompanied by high cost. Subsequently, the paper explores the advantages and disadvantages of direct recycling technology of cathode materials, compared with that of traditional recycling technology in process complexity, energy consumption, greenhouse gas emission, and cost considerations. Direct recycling technology emerges as the most favorable strategy for cathode material recycling, offering advantages in terms of cost, energy efficiency, and environmental impact. Finally, the strategy and challenges of direct cathode regeneration are summarized and discussed from the technical and environmental perspectives, and provide a new perspective for closed-loop recycling, to promote the industrialization and sustainable upgrading of cathode direct recycling.