RELOAD: Recycled lithium ion battery anode materials for high value products

自问世以来，对锂离子电池（LIB）的需求呈指数级增长。虽然LIB最初应用于便携式电子产品，但由于其高比容量、高能量密度和优于传统二次电池的循环性能，在过去十年中，LIB在电动汽车中的应用越来越多。LIB的发展受到电池工业中使用的原始材料储量有限和成本增加的威胁。这种对锂离子电池的巨大需求带来了与不可再生资源的耗尽和废旧电池的管理相关的巨大挑战。锂离子电池的回收/再循环主要集中在最具经济价值的材料上，即钴、锂、镍、锰、铜和铝。然而，LIB的商业化突破导致天然石墨等附加值较低的材料被列入欧盟（EU）2020年的关键原材料（CRM）清单，毫无疑问，天然石墨的供应链也面临风险，这一相当数量的含有重金属、有毒和易燃电解质的固体废物，而多样的有机物将需要大量的填埋资源，如果处理不当，可能会威胁人类健康和生态环境。事实上，废电池是增长最快的废弃电气和电子设备类型。根据旨在将报废材料重新引入经济周期的循环经济原则，回收和再利用电池中的废石墨是一项紧迫的任务。Talga打算进行一项可行性研究，以评估再利用废石墨阳极材料生产高表面积石墨和石墨烯类材料的可行性。因此，该研究将通过开发商业案例来评估潜在的商业利益Talga利用其现有的技术知识，进一步投资于将废物/废料用于高价值应用的概念。

The demand for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) has increased exponentially since their inception. Although they were initially applied into portable electronics, the last decade has witnessed an increasing use of LIBs into EVs given their high specific capacity, high energy density, and impressive cycling performance over conventional secondary batteries.The development of LIBs is threatened by the increasing cost and limited reserves of virgin materials used in the battery industry. This vast demand of LIB's entails great challenges related to the exhaustion of non-renewable resources and the management of spent batteries. The recovery/recycling of LIBs has been mainly concentrated on the most economically valuable materials, that is, cobalt, lithium, nickel, manganese, copper, and aluminium. However, the commercial breakthrough of LIBs resulted in the inclusion of materials with lower added value, such as natural graphite, in the 2020 list of the European Union (EU) of critical raw materials (CRMs), leaving no doubt that the supply chain of natural graphite is also at risk.This considerable amount of solid waste containing heavy metals, toxic and flammable electrolytes, and diverse organic matters will require extensive landfill resources and could threaten human health and the ecological environment if not handled properly. Indeed, spent batteries are the fastest growing type of waste electrical and electronic equipment. In line with the Circular Economy principles aiming at reintroducing end-of-life materials back into the economic cycle, the recycling and reuse of spent graphite from batteries are an urgent task.Talga intends to carry out a feasibility study to evaluate the reuse the spent graphite anode material to produce high surface area graphite and graphene like materials.The study will therefore evaluate potential commercial benefits by developing a business case for Talga to further invest in this concept of using waste/spent materials for high value applications using its available technical know-how.