Kalpana Dumre / Chemistry & Biochemistry / Faculty Mentor: Charles Phillip Shelor
Lithium-ion batteries are essential for modern society and are the preferred energy storage for portable devices and electric vehicles owing to their lightweight and high energy density. To meet the global demand for lithium-ion batteries and their component minerals, sustainable and cost-effective methods are necessary for the recovery of lithium and other valuable minerals from spent batteries. We are currently investigating hydrometallurgy coupled with electrodialysis to recover and purify lithium. Electrodialysis is an environmentally friendly technique where ions migrate under the influence of an electric field through a membrane into a receptor channel; it permits the concentration, purification, and conversion of lithium into the commodity chemical lithium hydroxide in a single process. The overall recycling process first involves discharging old lithium-ion batteries from an electric vehicle, followed by disassembly into their various components, which were then crushed and sieved to produce black mass. The black mass was then subjected to several hydro-metallurgical leaching steps. The initial leaching solution was investigated to extract lithium from the cathode metals which are recovered in subsequent steps. The lithium is then converted into lithium hydroxide by electrodialysis. The role of the membrane to improve selectivity and reduce energy consumption is being investigated.
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