Regeneration of Polyolefin Separators from Spent Li‐Ion Battery for Second Life
Subramanian Natarajan, Krishnan Subramanyan, R. Dhanalakshmi, A. Manuel Stephan, Vanchiappan Aravindan
Abstract
Abstract The increased usage of Lithium ion batteries and dominance in the consumer applications bring out a vast quantity of hazardous spent LIBs into the waste stream. Current recycling industries/technologies have engrossed only to recover the maximum valuable metal sources from the spent LIBs and the ignorance of harmful polyolefins (separators/polymers) in a huge amount would earn environmental hazards and impedes the reuse applications. In this study, for the first time, we have simply recovered the used separator from spent LIBs, cleaned with de‐ionized water and reutilized the separator without any modification for new battery fabrication to emphasize “3R” principles in green chemistry. First, the recovered separator has been examined by characterization techniques including tensile strength, differential scanning calorimetry, ionic conductivity, electrolyte uptake, and interfacial resistance, etc. to validate the suitability for re‐use and compared with a commercial separator of Celgard. The obtained results endorsed to reuse the separator in a half‐cell configuration by employing LiMn 2 O 4 as a cathode and Li metal as an anode. The test cell displayed almost equal capacity of ∼123 mAh g −1 at 25 mA g −1 using the recovered separator and achieved better cycling life. These outcomes evidently prove that the recovered separator from spent LIBs would replace the commercial separator for the battery application in the near future that helps to accomplish the complete recycling process of spent LIBs for the industries where the recovery of metals only being effectively recycled.