Materials Today Energy | 2021
Efficient fabrication of metal sulfides/graphite anode materials derived from spent lithium-ion batteries by gas sulfidation process
Abstract
Abstract Although regeneration of spent lithium-ion batteries is of great significance for alleviating resource-shortage and addressing environment issues, the recycling process still confronts with great challenges. Meanwhile, majority of recycling processes concentrate on the cathode materials , while the anode material has received little attention because of its low value. In this study, we develop a novel recycling process for spent LiNi xCoyMn1-x-yO2/LiNixCoyAl1-x-yO2 /graphite materials to prepare carbon–metal sulfides composites (NCMS/C and NCAS/C) by the gas sulfidation method. During this regeneration process, it can not only fulfill the efficient recycling within a short procedure of solid–solid transformation without involving tedious acid–base neutralization reaction, but also realize the recycling of high-valued components within the spent batteries simultaneously. Benefiting from the synergistic effect of the tight contact between metal sulfides and reconstructed graphite with high conductivity , it delivers the outstanding electrochemical properties for lithium storage (NCMS/C: 900.4\xa0mAh\xa0g −1 at 0.2\xa0A\xa0g−1 after 200 cycles, NCAS/C: 830.5\xa0mAh\xa0g−1 at 0.2\xa0A\xa0g−1 after 200 cycles). It is noted that this approach provides a new insight into the transformation from spent lithium-ion batteries to value-added materials with efficient reutilization, which makes full use of the valuable components by recycling spent cathode and anode materials synchronously, to achieve the win-win situation of environment protection and resource conservation.