Preparing La-Doped LiAl5O8 from the Electrode Materials of Waste Lithium-Ion Batteries

For sustainable development of resources, pyrometallurgy, hydrometallurgy, and bioleaching have been widely employed in the recovery of waste lithium-ion batteries. Metallic resources have been successfully recovered by these technologies. However, high-value and comprehensive utilization technology of waste lithium-ion batteries is still in its infancy. In this paper, a combined technology of material molecular design and vacuum gasification deposition to prepare high-value optical materials (La-doped LiAl5O8) from the electrode materials of waste lithium-ion batteries is reported. The band gap of the designed La-doped LiAl5O8 was reduced by 1.077 eV compared to that of LiAl5O8. The La-d state caused a blue shift in the spectrogram so that the material can be excited by lower energy light. La-doped LiAl5O8 was successfully prepared by vacuum gasification deposition, and its strongest emission peak was at 450 nm. Photoluminescence intensity of La-doped LiAl5O8 was twice that of LiAl5O8. Chromaticity of the recovered La-doped LiAl5O8 was located at (0.17, 0.15), which indicated that La-doped LiAl5O8 was a highly efficient blue-emissive material and had great potential application in light-emitting diodes. This paper contributes to a new strategy in the value-added recovery of solid waste.