Kar Umut, Fahimi Ario, Suponik Tomasz, Kaya Muammer, Chu Pengbo
Department of Mining and Metallurgical Engineering, University of Nevada, Reno 1664 N. Virginia St, Reno, NV, 89557, USA.
Faculty of Mining, Safety Engineering and Industrial Automation, Silesian University of Technology, 2 Akademicka Street, Gliwice, 44-100, Poland.
J Environ Manage. 2025 Sep;392:126798. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2025.126798. Epub 2025 Jul 31.
With the rapid growth of electric vehicles and portable electronics, the demand for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) is soaring, bringing urgent attention to the sustainable management of spent LIBs (S-LIBs). Efficient recycling is essential to recover valuable materials, reduce environmental burden, and mitigate resource scarcity. However, the pretreatment stage, which includes discharging, binder removal, and comminution remains a bottleneck in terms of safety, cost, and scalability. The main objective of this study is to evaluate four pretreatment options for S-LIBs, focusing on discharging, binder removal and grinding methods from technical, environmental and economic perspectives. The results show that cryogenic discharging combined with cryogenic grinding without solvent treatment offers a good balance between process efficiency and ease of implementation. Life cycle assessment (LCA) showed that the use of NaCl solution for discharge has the lowest global warming potential but poses operational and safety challenges. Conversely, options utilizing N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) for binder removal increased both cost and environmental impact. The economic analysis highlighted the critical need to optimize liquid nitrogen and solvent usage for scalability. These results provide insights into sustainable and cost-effective pretreatment strategies that improve the feasibility of industrial-scale S-LIB recycling.
随着电动汽车和便携式电子产品的迅速发展，锂离子电池（LIBs）的需求飙升，这使得废旧锂离子电池（S-LIBs）的可持续管理问题受到了迫切关注。高效回收对于回收有价值的材料、减轻环境负担和缓解资源短缺至关重要。然而，包括放电、去除粘结剂和粉碎在内的预处理阶段在安全性、成本和可扩展性方面仍然是一个瓶颈。本研究的主要目的是从技术、环境和经济角度评估S-LIBs的四种预处理方案，重点关注放电、去除粘结剂和研磨方法。结果表明，低温放电结合低温研磨且无需溶剂处理在工艺效率和实施便利性之间实现了良好的平衡。生命周期评估（LCA）表明，使用氯化钠溶液进行放电具有最低的全球变暖潜能值，但存在操作和安全挑战。相反，使用N-甲基-2-吡咯烷酮（NMP）去除粘结剂的方案增加了成本和环境影响。经济分析强调了为实现可扩展性而优化液氮和溶剂使用的迫切需求。这些结果为可持续且具有成本效益的预处理策略提供了见解，提高了工业规模S-LIB回收的可行性。
