Recycling Spent LiFePO₄ Battery to Prepare Low-Cost Li₄SiO₄ Sorbents for High-Temperature CO₂ Capture

Abstract

Renewable energy and electric vehicles are well-acknowledged strategies for reducing CO2 emissions, and their development relies heavily on the core of energy storage systems using lithium-ion batteries. However, recycling of lithium-ion batteries is far from mature, and massive abandonment of spent batteries would lead to severe environmental pollution. Meanwhile, the shortage of lithium resources brought about by the rapid development of lithium-ion batteries, especially LiFePO4, significantly drives up the preparation cost of Li4SiO4 as a promise sorbent and greatly limits its application as a CO2 capture scheme. Hence, a strategy is urgently needed to alleviate the lithium resource contradiction between energy storage and CO2 mitigation. Herein, we report a novel concept in recycling spent LiFePO4 battery to prepare high-efficiency and low-cost Li4SiO4 sorbents for CO2 capture. The obtained Li4SiO4 sorbents demonstrate very stable CO2 capacities of 0.27–0.28 g/g in a typical test up to 80 cycles, a leading level in CO2 capture, while the cost is only 1/6 of the conventional preparation process. It suggests that the concept of recycling spent LiFePO4 for CO2 capture has broad implications on resource utilization of energy waste and the mitigation of CO2 emissions.