Turning waste into wealth: A systematic review on echelon utilization and material recycling of retired lithium-ion batteries

With the increasing production and marketing of global electric vehicles (EVs), a large quantity of lithium ion battery (LIB) raw materials are demanded, and massive LIBs will be retired from EVs. Proper handling of these retired LIBs is becoming an urgent problem. Echelon utilization and LIB materials recycling, as an indispensable link of the closed loop chain in the entire life cycle of LIBs, have attracted the global attention due to their huge economic, environmental, and social values. In this paper, the echelon utilization and recycling of the retired LIBs are systematically reviewed. First, the current status, recycling mode and industrial chain, policy and standards, and common technical problems of echelon utilization and recycling are analyzed comprehensively. Second, the key technologies in echelon utilization are summari zed, such as establishment and estimation of residual value evaluation indexes, rapid sorting and regrouping methods. To improve the rapidity and accuracy of the LIB sorting, two valuable sorting methods are proposed. Third, some common battery recycling technologies, such as pretreatment, pyrometallurgy, hydrometallurgy, bioleaching, are systematically summarized. Finally, the potential next generation techniques about the entire life cycle digital management of LIBs is prospected, and some conclusions ar e presented.