Apte Sayali, Mukherjee Aparna, Mishra Preeti
Assistant Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Symbiosis Institute of Technology (SIT), Symbiosis International (Deemed University) (SIU), Pune, India.
Research Scholar, Department of Civil Engineering, Symbiosis Institute of Technology (SIT), Symbiosis International (Deemed University) (SIU), Pune, India.
MethodsX. 2025 Jul 12;15:103506. doi: 10.1016/j.mex.2025.103506. eCollection 2025 Dec.
The pervasive presence of Spent Lithium-Ion Batteries (S-LIB) poses a significant environmental threat due to their hazardous components and the resource-intensive mining of scarce metals like lithium, cobalt, and nickel. Efficient recycling offers a solution by fostering a circular economy and mitigating the environmental impact of disposal and primary resource extraction. Electrochemical recycling (ECR) has emerged as a promising sustainable technology for recovering scarce metals and promoting the circular economy. The paper discusses methods for ECR of S-LIBs, emphasizing the latest developments targeting the increasing demand for critical metals. The U.S. patent data available through January 2025 is accessed from the Lens database using different keywords. Focusing on the latest and highly cited patents, the paper establishes benefits, drawbacks, research gaps, and future scopes in the domain of ECR. Higher selectivity, reduced energy usage, less environmental footprint, increased recovery rates, and possibilities of electrolyte regeneration appeared as some strengths of electrochemical techniques. However, challenges like process complexity due to multi-element systems, employment of strongly corrosive solvents, membrane fouling, and scalability are also witnessed. Future work must aim to improvise the electrochemical recovery system using high-performance anodes, decrease corrosiveness to enhance the electrode durability, and improve membrane performance to make scalable, cost-efficient, and environmentally friendly electrochemical recovery of high-purity metals from S-LIBs.
废旧锂离子电池（S-LIB）的广泛存在因其有害成分以及锂、钴和镍等稀有金属资源密集型开采而对环境构成重大威胁。高效回收通过促进循环经济以及减轻处置和原生资源开采对环境的影响提供了一种解决方案。电化学回收（ECR）已成为一种有前景的可持续技术，用于回收稀有金属并促进循环经济。本文讨论了S-LIBs的ECR方法，强调了针对关键金属需求不断增加的最新进展。通过使用不同关键词从Lens数据库获取截至2025年1月的美国专利数据。聚焦于最新且被高度引用的专利，本文确立了ECR领域的优势、劣势、研究差距和未来发展范围。更高的选择性、降低的能源使用、更小的环境足迹、提高的回收率以及电解质再生的可能性成为电化学技术的一些优势。然而，也存在一些挑战，如多元素系统导致的工艺复杂性、使用强腐蚀性溶剂、膜污染和可扩展性等问题。未来的工作必须旨在使用高性能阳极改进电化学回收系统，降低腐蚀性以提高电极耐久性，并改善膜性能，从而实现从S-LIBs中可扩展、具有成本效益且环境友好地电化学回收高纯度金属。
