Pre-Treatment and Characterization of Cathode Active Material from Spent Lithium-IoN Batteries

Alfred Obaje¹ , Douglas Onyancha² , Samuel Mirie³

1. Dept. of Chemistry, Dedan Kimathi University of Technology, Private Bag – 10143, Dedan Kimathi, Nyeri – Kenya.
2. Dept. of Chemistry, Dedan Kimathi University of Technology, Private Bag – 10143, Dedan Kimathi, Nyeri – Kenya.
3. Dept. of Chemistry, Dedan Kimathi University of Technology, Private Bag – 10143, Dedan Kimathi, Nyeri – Kenya.

Section:Research Paper, Product Type: Journal-Paper
Vol.10 , Issue.1 , pp.8-15, Feb-2023

Online published on Feb 28, 2023

Copyright © Alfred Obaje, Douglas Onyancha, Samuel Mirie . This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
 

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Abstract :
The development of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) for use in electric vehicles, portable electronic devices, and energy-storage devices has resulted in an increase in the quantity of used LIBs. The environment and public health are seriously endangered by the hazardous metals found in spent LIBs, for example Cobalt and Manganese metals, with a poisonous caustic electrolyte, and binders of organic origin. Based on these factors, procedures for recycling LIBs that are efficient, affordable, also benign to the environment are being developed in order to ensure a long-term sustainable future solution. In this research, used lithium batteries, were released into a sodium chloride solution with a lower concentration, manual dismantling of LIBs components, separations of components as cathode, anode, plastic casing, separators, electrolyte. Also dissolution of cathode material in sodium hydroxide solutions and finally characterized the cathode electrode, using X-ray fluorescence spectrometer (XRF) and Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The Polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) and diethyl carbonate (DEC) particles in raw cathode material, detected by Fourier Transform infrared (FT-IR) analysis, were effectively thermally decomposed at 464.98 °C and 150 °C respectively. The XRF analysis of thermally treated cathode material powder showed presence of: 61.72 % of Co, 12.11 % of Ni, 9.64 % of Mn, and 16.53 % others component.

Key-Words / Index Term :
Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs); Cathode active material (CAM); Polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF); Diethyl carbonate (DEC); Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE)

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