Carbon recovered from spent carbon cathode of aluminum reduction cell towards its valorisation as negative electrodes for lithium ion batteries
Kai Yang, Peiyu Gong, Zhongliang Tian, Ke Peng, Yanqing Lai
Abstract
Spent carbon cathode (SCC), one of the hazardous solid wastes from aluminum reduction cell, is recovered by the alkali fusion method. The recovered carbon (RC) is characterized by XRD, TGA, SEM, TEM, Raman. Meanwhile, the RC used as the anode for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) is investigated. The results show that the impurities content of SCC decreases from 36.36% to 5.62%. And the RC shows the unique microstructure with slightly expanded graphite layer (0.339–0.420 nm), uneven graphitization degree and a small number of defects and graphene. RC exhibits an initial capacity of 357.6 ± 9.6 mA h·g−1 at 0.1C and rate capability with a reversible capacity of 267.8 ± 12.5 mA h·g−1 at 1C after 310 cycles. Compared with graphite, the RC has better cyclic stability. Therefore, this method provides a potential way for the resource utilization of SCC.