Themed collection Energy Materials Redesign, Reuse and Repurpose

This review addresses the aqueous processing of high-nickel NMC materials and its challenges, including pH elevation and lithium leaching. Tailored binder selection is crucial, offering a strategic pathway for sustainable battery manufacturing.

Supercritical fluid technology is a promising approach for sustainable and efficient resource recovery (especially fluorinated binders and electrolytes) from end-of-life lithium ion batteries with significant economic and environmental perspectives.

For improved sustainability, remanufacturing is a vital loop of a circular economy. We detail progress on remanufacturing strategies for perovskite solar cells and highlight key aspects that need advancement to deliver a sustainable technology.

A streamlined workflow is established for the recovery of graphite from industrial lithium-ion battery black mass, which could be seamlessly integrated into the existing cathode materials recycling processes developed in the industry.

A nickel-selective amic-acid extractant D2EHAG efficiently leaches and separates metals from LiB cathode materials. Furthermore, D2EHAG can be reused for subsequent leaching, making it a promising candidate for a sustainable recycling process.

Herein, we report a simple strategy to achieve good mechanical properties in bio-inspired long-chain polyesters via melt copolymerization.

The isolation of Ni/Co double salts can be recovered by fractional precipitation with ammonium sulfate. The elemental analysis of these isolated double salts shows a total metal composition of >99% of Ni, Co, and Mn with negligible impurity metals.

Cyclic deposition and stripping of metal ions (e.g. Cu²⁺) on Ir-oxides enhance electrochemical dissolution of Ir-oxides, likely due to weakening of the Ir–O–Ir bonds. The phenomenon is influential to IrO_x catalyst stability and recovery perspective.

The supercapacitive studies of the composites of reduced graphene oxide (rGO)/β-Co(OH)₂, in which the source of graphite used for the synthesis of rGO is the graphite recovered from spent Li-ion batteries.

Upcycling of lithium cobalt oxide (LCO) into lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide (NMC111) cathode material using acetone antisolvent crystallization of citrate leachate followed by sol–gel synthesis with complementary metal acetate or sulfate salts.

The growing demand for lithium-ion batteries over the last decade, coupled with the limited and geographically confined supply of high-quality battery-grade graphite, underscores the importance of recycling graphite from spent batteries.

Low value Mn based spinel from an EOL EV battery is selectively leached and upcycled to higher value next generation cathode materials.

Both Pb-based and Pb-free piezoceramics find a new purpose as fillers in upside-down composites fabricated with an ultralow energy budget, providing a second life to sensors and energy harvesters.

Optimizing the location of lithium ion battery preprocessing facilities.