AbstractElectrodeposition of Cobalt and Nickel for Hydrometallurgical Lithium Ion Battery Recycling
by
Anthony Castillo Reyes
Master of Science in Engineering
University of California, Irvine, 2023
Associate Professor Iryna Zenyuk, Chair
Battery recycling is the solution for creating a closed loop system between manufacturing
and production of batteries to the end-of-life batteries from cars to energy storage. With growing
interest in electric vehicles creating inevitable battery waste, a scalable and efficient recycling
process is needed for this increasing demand. The goal of this study is to electrochemically
deposit cathode material from a leached solution to incorporate into existing hydrometallurgical
battery recycling processes. Cobalt and nickel were galvanostatically deposited from a simulated
leached cathode solution of NMC, producing 0.46 g of deposit material with a held current of
-0.25 A for 4900 s. This material resulted in both cobalt and nickel depositing in a 1:1 ratio and is
suitable for the construction of new cathode material recycling from end-of-life batteries.
Moreover, poly[diallyldimethylammonium chloride] was incorporated as an electrode
coating for the separation of cobalt and nickel. This addition resulted in a lighter deposit material
of 0.39 g and was found unsuccessful in separation. The inability to separate the metals was
attributed to the separation occurring only at the surface of the electrode.