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Dear Colleagues,

The energy transition relies on developing technologies to sustainably produce energy from wind, sun, and potential energy resources, among others. This energy is often intermittent, and it is, therefore, necessary to be able to store and restore it reversibly. Electric mobility is also a major contributor to reducing the impacts of human activity on the environment and the climate since it contributes to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Lithium-ion batteries (LiBs) are at the heart of energy storage for stationary applications and electric mobility. They are now widely used in phones, laptops, portable tools, etc., and their increasing use in electric vehicles is indisputable (about 3 million new electric cars were registered in 2020, including 1.4 million new registrations in Europe despite the pandemic). It is expected that this market (and the associated LiBs market) will continue to grow in the coming decades under the impulsion of the energy transition and since EV prices will reach parity with fossil-fuel powered vehicles in 2025.

Both primary and secondary resources are essential to meet the raw material demand for LiB production arising from the projected huge increase in electric vehicle production in the next decade. For example, the demand for cobalt, nickel and lithium is forecasted to increase by 180%, 900% and 1000%, respectively, between 2019 and 2030.

This Special Issue aims to gather outstanding works on the sustainable supply of raw materials for lithium-ion batteries within the context of the circular economy. Articles on extractive metallurgical processes for the production of raw materials from mining and recycling, the life cycle assessment of strategies for mining lithium-ion battery materials and to recycle lithium-ion batteries, the resource economics of metals for lithium-ion battery production, business models and logistics for developing lithium-ion batteries within the framework of the circular economy, and the social challenges to be overcome in the development of lithium-ion batteries are welcome in this Special Issue.

Prof. Dr. Alexandre Chagnes
Prof. Dr. Kerstin Forsberg
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Metals is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

extractive metallurgy
lithium-ion battery
circular economy
business models
resource economics, environmental impact
social challenges

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Editorial

Jump to: Research

5 pages, 415 KiB

Open AccessEditorial

Raw Material Supply for Lithium-Ion Batteries in the Circular Economy

by Alexandre Chagnes and Kerstin Forsberg

Metals 2023, 13(9), 1590; https://doi.org/10.3390/met13091590 - 13 Sep 2023

Viewed by 1088

Abstract

The energy transition relies on the development of technologies that make it possible to produce energy in a sustainable manner from resources such as wind, sun, potential energy, etc [...] Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Raw Material Supply for Lithium-Ion Batteries in the Circular Economy)

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Research

Jump to: Editorial

15 pages, 2439 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Lithium-Ion Battery Recycling: Metal Recovery from Electrolyte and Cathode Materials by Electrodialysis

by Soumaya Gmar, Laurence Muhr, Florence Lutin and Alexandre Chagnes

Metals 2022, 12(11), 1859; https://doi.org/10.3390/met12111859 - 31 Oct 2022

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2904

Abstract

The potential of electrodialysis to recycle spent lithium-ion batteries was assessed by investigating the recovery of lithium(I) from a synthetic solution representative of the aqueous effluent generated by shredding spent lithium-ion batteries underwater. Likewise, electrodialysis was tested for the selective recovery of lithium(I) towards cobalt(II), nickel(II) and manganese(II) from a synthetic solution representative of the leaching liquor of cathode materials. NMR spectroscopy showed that the implementation of electrodialysis to extract lithium from the aqueous effluent produced during battery shredding underwater should take into account the presence of HF generated by PF₆⁻ hydrolysis. In particular, it seems relevant to perform shredding under calcium chloride solution in order to precipitate fluoride and reduce HF generation. This work also showed that electrodialysis is an interesting technology for selectively recovering lithium from the leach solution of spent cathode materials, providing that divalent cations were previously removed to avoid metal precipitation inside the electrodialysis membranes. After removing cobalt(II) and nickel(II) at pH 2.8 and manganese(II) partially at pH 5.5 by using the ion exchange resin Dowex M4195, it is possible to extract and selectively concentrate lithium by electrodialysis without coextracting manganese(II) by using a lithium-selective membrane (faradic efficiency of 57.6%, permselectivity for lithium towards manganese of 6.9). Finally, a hybrid flowsheet implementing mineral processing and hydrometallurgy, including electrodialysis, ion exchange and crystallization stages, was proposed based on these results to reduce effluent generation and produce metal salts from spent lithium-ion battery. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Raw Material Supply for Lithium-Ion Batteries in the Circular Economy)

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