by Clarence Oxford
Los Angeles CA (SPX) Nov 11, 2025
Engineers at Rice College have developed a course of that recovers lithium from electrical automobile battery waste utilizing electrical energy and water, skipping the necessity for robust acids and sophisticated chemical steps. The tactic applies the identical response as standard battery charging, driving lithium ions from spent cathodes into water the place they mix with hydroxide to kind high-purity lithium hydroxide.
Sibani Lisa Biswal defined, “If charging a battery pulls lithium out of a cathode, why not use that very same response to recycle?” By using a compact electrochemical reactor, the group separated lithium effectively and produced the lithium salt favored by producers.
In experiments, the zero-gap membrane-electrode reactor processed industrial battery waste, reaching a restoration price of almost ninety p.c over one thousand hours and creating lithium hydroxide with purity exceeding ninety-nine p.c. The method required as little as 100 three kilojoules of power per kilogram of waste, far under standard acid-leaching operations. The system scaled to twenty sq. centimeters and dealt with fifty-seven grams of business black mass equipped by TotalEnergies.
Haotian Wang added, “Straight producing high-purity lithium hydroxide shortens the trail again into new batteries. Meaning fewer processing steps, decrease waste and a extra resilient provide chain.”
Exams confirmed the expertise works with varied battery chemistries, akin to lithium iron phosphate and nickel-manganese-cobalt varieties. The researchers additionally demonstrated steady roll-to-roll processing of electrodes, eliminating guide therapy.
Future targets embrace constructing bigger reactor stacks, bettering membrane efficiency, and refining postprocessing to chop power use additional.
Biswal acknowledged, “We have made lithium extraction cleaner and less complicated. Now we see the following bottleneck clearly. Sort out focus, and also you unlock even higher sustainability.”
Analysis Report:A direct electrochemical Li recovery from spent Li-ion battery cathode for high-purity lithium hydroxide feedstock
Associated Hyperlinks
Rice University
Powering The World in the 21st Century at Energy-Daily.com
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