Organic Electrolytes Recycling From Spent Lithium-Ion Batteries

Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) are regarded to be the most promising electrochemical energy storage device for portable electronics as well as electrical vehicles. However, due to their limited-service life, tons of spent LIBs are expected to be produced in the recent years. Suitable recycling technology is therefore becoming more and more important as improper treatment of spent LIBs, especially the aged organic electrolyte, can cause severe environmental pollution and threats to human health. The organic solvents and high concentration of lithium salts in aged electrolytes are always sensitive toward water and air, which would easily hydrolyze and decompose into toxic fluorine-containing compounds, leading to severe fluorine pollution of the surrounding environment. Hence, recycling aged electrolytes from spent LIBs is an efficient way to avoid this potential risk to the environment. However, several issues inhibit the realization of electrolyte recycling, including the volatile, inflammable, and toxic nature of the electrolytes, the difficulty to extract electrolytes from the electrodes and separators, and various electrolyte compositions inside LIBs from different applications and companies. Herein, the current progress in recycling methods for aged electrolytes from spent LIBs is summarized and perspectives on future development of electrolyte recycling are presented.