Researchers Recycle Lithium-Ion Batteries via Simple Electrolysis — and Restore Near-New Performance

Researchers at Aalto University have come up with a technique for recycling batteries that doesn't require them to be crushed, dissolved, or melted down — and which can restore them to their near-original performance.

"In our earlier study of how lithium cobalt oxide batteries age, we noticed that one of the main causes of battery deterioration is the depletion of lithium in the electrode material," Professor Tanja Kallio explains of the work. "The structures can nevertheless remain relatively stable, so we wanted to see if they can be reused."

The answer, it turns out, is that it can: Rather than recycling lithium-ion batteries the traditional way, by crushing and melting or dissolving the materials within and going through a difficult chemical refinement process to turn the spent cobalt electrode back into a functional lithium cobalt oxide electrode, the team have developed a method of using electrolysis to restore the electrodes as they are.

"By reusing the structures of batteries we can avoid a lot of the labour that is common in recycling and potentially save energy at the same time," Kallio explains of the advantage to the new process. "We believe that the method could help companies that are developing industrial recycling."

When recycled through electrolysis and refreshed with new lithium, the performance of the batteries is very nearly as good as when the battery was fresh from the factory. Better still, the process scales: Because electrolysis is already used on an industrial scale for other tasks, the researchers believe their battery recycling system can be quickly deployed and ramped up.

The team's work has been published under closed-access terms in the journal ChemSusChem. The next step: Adapting the technique for the nickel-based batteries of electric vehicles.