Collaborative Research: EAGER: CET: The Dissolution of Li-ion Batteries and Recycling of their Precious Components.

非技术总结：电池技术对我们的现代生活方式至关重要：它为从手机到心脏起搏器再到最近的汽车等一切事物提供动力。电池需求的快速增长导致了电池浪费的急剧增加。此外，不断增长的需求要求增加对电池至关重要的矿物的开采，这些矿物往往来自政治不稳定的地区。电池回收有望解决这两个问题：回收电池废料减少了电池浪费的程度，并回收了制造新电池所需的原材料。然而，目前的电池回收方法使用苛刻的化学物质和设计流程来回收电池废物中最有价值的成分，限制了可扩展性和环境可持续性。这项清洁能源技术（CET） EAGER奖由美国国家科学基金会材料研究部固态和材料化学项目支持，纽约州立大学奥尔巴尼分校和扬斯敦州立大学的研究人员研究了一种更可持续、更有效的电池回收新方法。该方法利用了与材料强烈相互作用的液体，将它们从电池废物中提取出来，而不管最初的电池设计如何。然后，这些材料可以用吸附和电沉积相结合的方法进行净化，吸附是一种将目标元素选择性地附着在高表面积粉末上的过程，电沉积是一种使用电流从初始液体中单独去除剩余元素的过程。该项目的一个挑战是，液体需要与电池废料发生强烈的相互作用，但不能分解净化废物流的材料。该项目的结果将对电池产业、环境和美国的国家安全产生重大影响。它提供了一种方法来减少我们对不可靠的电池材料来源的依赖，保护环境免受过度的电池浪费，并有助于确保国内电池行业的持续增长，此外，为本科生和研究生提供最先进的研究经验。技术概述：电池技术的快速发展导致了对电池回收新方法的迫切需求，以便回收宝贵的电池金属并减少电池浪费。这项清洁能源技术（CET） EAGER奖的长期目标是开发一种系统，能够从常见的废物流中分离出废锂离子电池（lib）的所有单个金属成分。该奖项由美国国家科学基金会材料研究部门的固态和材料化学项目支持。纽约州立大学奥尔巴尼分校和扬斯敦州立大学的研究人员利用能够氧化和协调这些金属成分的溶剂，将它们从机械处理的电池废料（黑色物质）中去除。溶解后，通过吸附和电沉积相结合的方法分离金属成分。在吸附方面，新的金属有机框架（mof）被设计为通过可逆和选择性相互作用来分离碱金属（如Li）。通过电沉积收集单个过渡金属，这允许根据母体过渡金属络合物在溶液中的氧化还原特性分离每种过渡金属。这项研究有望带来重大的科学见解和进步：首先，阐明了金属在配位溶剂中的溶解机制，从而发现了比目前用于这一目的的溶剂更环保的溶剂。其次，提高了mof中阳离子吸附的可逆吸附过程的知识。第三，选择性过渡金属电沉积，结合本工作的其他结果，可以收集任何成分的电池中最有价值的成分。预计这项研究将在矿物开采和提取、含稀土材料的再循环以及节能金属离子分离和净化等领域产生更广泛的影响。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARY:Battery technology is essential to our modern way of life: it powers everything from cellphones to pacemakers to, more recently, vehicles. The rapidly growing demand for batteries has led to a dramatic increase in battery waste. Furthermore, increasing demand has necessitated an increase in mining minerals important for batteries, often from politically unstable locations. Battery recycling holds promise to address both problems: recycled battery waste reduces the extent of battery waste and recovers the raw materials needed to make new batteries. However, current battery recycling methods use harsh chemicals and designer processes to recover the most valuable components of battery waste, limiting both scalability and environmental sustainability. With this Clean Energy Technology (CET) EAGER award, supported by the Solid State and Materials Chemistry program in NSF’s Division of Materials Research, investigators at SUNY at Albany and Youngstown State University study a new method for battery recycling that is more sustainable and more efficient. The method takes advantage of liquids that interact strongly with the materials to pull them out of battery waste, regardless of the original battery design. Those materials can then be purified using a combination of adsorption – a process by which the targeted elements selectively stick to a high-surface area powder – and electrodeposition, a process by which the remaining elements are individually removed from the initial liquid using an electric current. One challenge of the project is that the liquids need to strongly interact with the battery waste materials, but not break down the material that purifies the waste stream. The outcome of this project will significantly impact the battery industry, the environment, and the national security of the United States. It offers a way to reduce our dependence on unreliable sources for battery materials, protect the environment from excessive battery waste, and help to ensure the continued growth of the domestic battery industry and, additionally, provides state-of-the-art research experiences for undergraduate and graduate students.TECHNICAL SUMMARY:The rapid rise of battery technology has led to a critical need for new approaches to battery recycling in order to both recover precious battery metals and reduce battery waste. The long-term goal of this Clean Energy Technology (CET) EAGER award, supported by the Solid State and Materials Chemistry program in NSF’s Division of Materials Research, is to develop a system capable of isolating all individual metallic components of spent lithium ion batteries (LIBs) from a common waste stream. Researchers at SUNY at Albany and Youngstown State University take advantage of solvents capable of oxidizing and coordinating to these metal components to remove them from mechanically processed battery waste (black mass). After dissolution, the metal components are separated by a combination of adsorption and electrodeposition. For adsorption, new metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are design specifically to isolate alkali metals (e.g., Li) through reversible and selective interactions. Individual transition metals are collected by electrodeposition, which allows isolation of each transition metal based on the redox characteristics of the parent transition metal complex in solution. This investigation is expected to lead to significant scientific insights and advances: first, mechanisms for metal dissolution in coordinating solvents are elucidated, enabling the discovery of solvents more environmentally benign than those currently used for this purpose. Second, knowledge about reversible adsorption processes for cation adsorption in MOFs is advanced. Third, selective transition metal electrodeposition, in combination with the other results from this work, enable the collection of the most valuable components of batteries of any composition. The study is expected to have broader impacts in the areas of mineral mining and extraction, recycling of rare-earth-containing materials, and energy efficient metal ion separation and purification.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.