Selective cobalt and nickel electrodeposition for lithium-ion battery recycling through integrated electrolyte and interface control.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 34772937.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-021-26814-7 and PMC identifier 8590046.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Molecularly-selective metal separations are key to sustainable recycling of Li-ion battery electrodes. However, metals with close reduction potentials present a fundamental challenge for selective electrodeposition, especially for critical elements such as cobalt and nickel. Here, we demonstrate the synergistic combination of electrolyte control and interfacial design to achieve molecular selectivity for cobalt and nickel during potential-dependent electrodeposition. Concentrated chloride allows for the speciation control via distinct formation of anionic cobalt chloride complex (CoCl<sub>4</sub><sup>2-</sup>), while maintaining nickel in the cationic form ([Ni(H<sub>2</sub>O)<sub>5</sub>Cl]<sup>+</sup>). Furthermore, functionalizing electrodes with a positively charged polyelectrolyte (i.e., poly(diallyldimethylammonium) chloride) changes the mobility of CoCl<sub>4</sub><sup>2-</sup> by electrostatic stabilization, which tunes cobalt selectivity depending on the polyelectrolyte loading. This strategy is applied for the multicomponent metal recovery from commercially-sourced lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide electrodes. We report a final purity of 96.4 ± 3.1% and 94.1 ± 2.3% for cobalt and nickel, respectively. Based on a technoeconomic analysis, we identify the limiting costs arising from the background electrolyte, and provide a promising outlook of selective electrodeposition as an efficient separation approach for battery recycling.