Sustainable regeneration of spent cathodes for lithium-ion and post-lithium-ion batteries

Abstract The development of electric vehicles is accelerating the world's transition to sustainable energy, but the millions of end-of-life electric vehicles generated over the next decade pose serious waste management challenges, especially the recycling of spent batteries. Here we propose two cathode regeneration processes to enable scalable and affordable recycling of spent lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) into brand-new LIBs and their alternatives, such as sodium-ion batteries (SIBs). The regenerated layered oxide materials deliver a reversible area capacity of up to 2.73 mAh cm− 2 with excellent structural stability for LIBs, while obtained cyanide complex manifests an 83.7% retention over 2000 cycles for SIBs and robust cycling stability for pouch cells. By contrast, the manufacturing costs for LIBs and SIBs using our regenerated materials have dropped to an all-time low of $47.16 and $37.49 per kWh, with conspicuous reductions in energy consumption, water consumption, and harmful gas emissions. Our sustainable battery recycling designs pave the way for the transition to more sustainable energy storage technologies, enabling post-LIBs with regenerated materials.