Recycling of Ceramics–Salt Electrolytes using Cold-Sintering

The increasing demand for high energy storage technology in consumer electronics and electric vehicles leads to large-scale production of lithium-ion batteries. This raises concerns regarding disposal issues on end-of-life battery wastes. A major challenge in recycling spent batteries is in that components in batteries show dramatic differences in thermal and chemical stabilities, making it difficult to engineer recycling approaches without breaking each component down into precursor forms. Herein, we developed a sustainable recycling strategy that enables direct regeneration of ceramics–salt solid-state electrolytes, Li_1+x+yAl_xTi_2−xSi_yP_3−yO₁₂ (LATP) with bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide (LiTFSI) salts. The low temperature of the cold-sintering process allows the recovery of composite materials without compromising their chemical properties. Reprocessed composite electrolytes show exceptional electrochemical properties in terms of high conductivities (>10⁻⁴ Scm⁻¹ at room temperature) and long-term stability at 0.1 mAh cm⁻² over 1500 hours. This method provides an insight in the reutilization of battery materials with low energy cost and improved recovery efficiency.