Fast Determination of Lithium Content in Spent Cathodes for Direct Battery Recycling
Xuemin Li, Fulya Doğan, Yingqi Lu, Christopher M Antunes, Ying Shi, Anthony K. Burrell, Chunmei Ban
Abstract
Abstract Determination of the lithium ion content in cathode materials, which is currently performed by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP−MS), involves tedious procedures and error‐prone preparation. This work introduces a new methodology to quickly determine the lithium content in spent cathode materials (LiNi x Mn y Co z O 2 , x + y + z = 1, NMC) using a thermalgravimetric analysis, which bypasses the use of ICP−MS and significantly reduces the cost and time required for determining the lithium content. Based on this new method, a new approach is developed to identify spent cathode materials suitable for direct relithiation recycling. Finally, these new methods have been applied to investigate the effectiveness of direct electrochemical−relithiation on recycling the spent cathodes, and provide insights for future development of direct battery materials recycling.