A Feasibility Study of Utilizing Directly Recycled LiFePO4 Cathodes for Second Life Usage in Stationary Applications

The exponential growth of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) leads to a rise in the number of spent LIBs and causes environmental and global sustainability issues. Recycling is one of the methods to address these issues. This study aimed to investigate the feasibility of using low-cost, recycled black mass lithium iron phosphate (LFP) cathode material (LFP R) in combination with new virgin LFP cathode material (LFP V) for second-life usage in coin cell LIB batteries. Five different compositions of spent LFPs and virgin LFPs were tested, and the results showed that the LFP 5050 composition exhibited the optimum performance in terms of cyclic stability, with 90 percent capacity retention at 50 percent of the cost of virgin LFP for up to 300 cycles. The study suggests that direct physical mixing of recycled LFP cathode material with new virgin LFP cathode material is better suited for secondary storage applications, such as stationary storage and powering electronic devices, than primary applications, such as electric vehicles. These results will have a big impact on how cost-effective and sustainably LIB batteries could be produced in the future.