Review on comprehensive recycling of spent lithium-ion batteries: A full component utilization process for green and sustainable production

The consumption of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) has increased dramatically in recent years. Recycling of spent LIBs has attracted much attention due to economic benefits and environmental protection requirements. The drawback of recycling spent LIBs is that it is currently difficult to balance effectiveness and environmental friendliness, as most industrial processes do not combine multiple recycling technologies in practice. Therefore, this study systematically analyzes the recycling technologies for spent LIBs in recent years and summarizes them under the two main aspects of pretreatment and deep treatment. Based on the advantages of the described technology, a clean and efficient recovery process for spent LIBs is proposed for sustainable purposes. The whole process is divided into primary treatment (pretreatment and physical separation) and deep treatment (biological leaching, hydrometallurgy, direct regeneration). The recovery of all components of the spent LIBs is achieved by recovering the electrolyte, shell, fluid collector, and diaphragm components in the primary treatment, while the electrode materials are treated in the deep treatment. The bioleaching system is combined with the organic acid leaching system to make the recovery process more sustainable and green. The process proposed in this paper can serve as a reference value for the future recovery of spent LIBs.