Pretreatment and Valorization of Critical Materials from Lithium-Ion Batteries Using Electrostatic and Magnetic Separation

Abstract

The electric revolution has driven a significant increase in the use of rechargeable batteries, particularly lithium-ion batteries, which contain several strategic elements and critical materials: Li, Co, Ni, P, and graphite. Efficient recovery of these materials is crucial to enhancing the resilience of the materials supply chain. Traditional recycling methods such as pyrometallurgy and hydrometallurgy have limitations, including high carbon intensity, cost, and limited material recovery. Robust physical separation pretreatment technologies can increase material purity for recycling. This study shows the utilization of electrostatic and magnetic separation processes across four distinct commercial cathode chemistries to produce high-grade cathodic and anodic electrode products. Production scrap and end-of-life cells are used, with LiMn₂O₄–LiNi_0.8Co_0.15Al_0.05O₂ (LMO/NCA), LiFePO₄ (LFP), LiCoO₂ (LCO), and LiNi_0.5Mn_0.3Co_0.2O₂ (NMC532) cathode chemistries, all partnered with graphite anodes. The application of these two separation technologies significantly improves the separation efficiency of shredded electrodes, leading to >98% recovery of shredded NMC cathode electrodes, and with >99% recovery of LMO–NCA electrodes, and >98% recovery of LFP electrodes. LCO is not found to be suitable for these separation processes. These advanced pretreatment methods produce high-purity concentrates of valuable cathode feedstocks, which can support secondary (critical) material feedstocks, and ultimately will reduce subsequent energy consumption.