Separation of lithium, nickel, manganese, and cobalt from waste lithium-ion batteries using electrodialysis

With the expansion of lithium-ion battery market and the awareness of environmental protection, the development of green and sustainable technologies to recycle waste lithium-ion batteries has become urgent. Electrodialysis is an emerging green process to recover valuable metals from postconsumer lithium-ion batteries. This study focuses on the separation and recovery of lithium, nickel, manganese, and cobalt from LiNi0.33Mn0.33Co0.33O2 chemistry of lithium-ion batteries using electrodialysis. Prior to the electrodialysis experiment, complexation of ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) with four different metals is assessed using ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy. Using the developed three-stage electrodialysis process, 99.3% of nickel is separated in stage 1 and 87.3% of cobalt is then separated in stage 2 using electrodialysis coupled with EDTA. About 99% of lithium is sequentially separated from manganese in stage 3 using electrodialysis with a monovalent cation-exchange membrane. After the electrodialysis experiment, nickel and cobalt are decomplexed from EDTA at pH below 0.5 and all four metals are recovered with high purity of >99%. Electrodialysis offers a new route to recycle lithium-ion batteries with twofold benefits of providing a secondary source for strategic materials and reducing the number of lithium-ion batteries that are landfilled after they reach their end of life.