Recycling waste LiCoO2 by chelating cobalt ions and lithium ions with trimesic acid and resynthesized

Authors：Liang, Qian; Shan, Yan^*; Hou, Xianhua^*

Source：Surfaces and Interfaces, 2022, 35: 102424.

DOI：10.1016/j.surfin.2022.102424

• Spent lithium-ion battery
• Trimesic acid
• Chelation reaction
• Resynthesized LiCoO2

Due to the shortage of resources and environmental pollution caused by lithium-ion batteries, a new process to recover cobalt and lithium from spent LiCoO2 batteries is innovatively proposed via trimesic acid (BTC) chelation reaction in this work. Since the three equidistant carboxylic acid ligands in BTC can form a stable structure with metal ions, the acidic environment formed by BTC acid and H2O2 enables BTC organic molecules to chelate cobalt ions and lithium ions. By optimizing the conditions, the BTC concentration was 0.2 M, the amount of reducing agent was 4 vol% H2O2, the liquid-solid ratio was 70 mL/g, and the reaction temperature was 80 degrees C, which were the best conditions for BTC to chelate and extract lithium and cobalt ions. The recovered Co3O4 and Li2CO3 can be directly used to resynthesize LiCoO2. The resynthesized LiCoO2 has good electrochemical performance, with a specific capacity of 166 mAh g(-1) after 100 cycles at 0.2 C. This paper provides an efficient and closed-loop recovery method, which is helpful for resource conservation and recycling.

• Institution
  广东药学院; y