Improved lithium-ion battery recycling will not only help the environment and consumers but businesses as well. In a 2022 study from Rice University published in the journal Advanced Materials, for instance, scientists were able to “quickly regenerate graphite anode materials found in lithium-ion batteries, removing impurities so they can be used again and again.” Army Research Laboratory scientist unaffiliated with the study, told Scientific American that the research team’s results were “very unique and very impressive.” The study’s findings also have the potential to be combined with similar research involving recycled anodes, the counterparts of cathodes. Rather than melting down the entire used battery (as most other recycling processes do), the team was able to salvage the cathode and merely change its structure, resulting in better performance than even a new battery can offer. To reach their unexpected conclusions, the scientists behind the study made some changes to the cathode, which is the key (and most expensive) component within a typical lithium-ion battery. Working in tandem, a group of 27 researchers from institutions like the Argonne National Laboratory and the Brookhaven National Laboratory tweaked the composition of recycled lithium-ion batteries to see how they would perform and achieved some surprising results. As if you needed yet another reason to recycle your electronics with lithium-ion batteries, a study in the science journal Joule shows that recycled lithium-ion batteries may outperform their new counterparts.

Recycle lithium batteries