Chemical-free pressure washing system as pretreatment to harvest cathode materials

Recycling cathode materials from spent lithium-ion batteries has the potential to reduce damages to the environment and human health due to hazardous waste treatment, and mitigate supply risks of raw materials. Related political incentives or regulations have led to increased research and development efforts on cathode recycling. Promising approaches include direct recycling and hydrometallurgical processes, where delamination is the first step after collection of cathodes. In this study, we examined a pressure washing system's ability to harvest cathode materials. A high-pressure water jet provides strong forces to overcome the adhesion provided by organic binders. Four factors (water pressure, distance between nozzle and cathode, incident angle of water jet, and nozzle type) were investigated using a 3^4-1 fractional factorial design to screen important parameters and find the optimal conditions. Compared with other delamination processes where chemical reagents and heating are involved, the chemical-free pressure washing system can achieve separation in a few seconds (∼74 min/m²) at room temperature, which remarkably improves the efficiency of delamination. The particle size of recycled products (D50 of 31.87 μm) is significantly reduced without Al contamination from current collectors or morphological damages. In addition, three types of recycled cathode materials were used as inputs for the acid leaching process. High leaching efficiencies of lithium (>90 %) and cobalt (>85 %) suggest that the pressure washing system could be a practical, economical, and eco-friendly pretreatment process to harvest cathode materials.