Reuse of Co Precursors Obtained from Spent Lithium-Ion Batteries

The surge in demand for lithium-ion batteries is expected to result in a substantial increase in the number of spent batteries in the near future. To effectively address battery waste, it is imperative to establish reliable and valid recycling processes and promote the reuse of recycled products. This study focuses on utilizing recycled Co precursors, namely, CoCO3, Co(OH)2, and CoC2O4 obtained from spent lithium-ion batteries, to resynthesize LiCoO2 for reuse. The specific capacities of LiCoO2 using CoCO3 as the precursor were measured in a half-cell, resulting in 110 mAh/g after 100 cycles. These remade LiCoO2 were coupled with recycled graphite from lithium-ion batteries to make full cells resulting in capacities of 108 mAh/g after 100 cycles. Furthermore, the structural evolution of full cells was investigated using in situ synchrotron X-ray diffraction. Only LiCoO2 synthesized from CoCO3 exhibited the monoclinic LiCoO2 structure in the charged state. Overall, this work provides guidance on the appropriate precursors that can be targeted in the recycling process in order to produce reuseable LiCoO2.