{"id":462957,"date":"2026-05-01T08:57:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T08:57:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/462957\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T08:57:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T08:57:14","slug":"plasma-process-supports-direct-recycling-of-battery-cathodes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/462957\/","title":{"rendered":"Plasma process supports direct recycling of battery cathodes"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\n\t\t\t\t\tMay 1, 2026\t\t\t\t | By Mary Page Bailey\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Direct battery-recycling methods, such as re-lithiation \u2014 where depleted lithium is replenished directly onto cathodes via a solid-state reaction \u2014 hold many benefits over indirect methods, such as those relying on hydrometallurgy or pyrometallurgy, where cathodic structures are destroyed in smelting and grinding processes. However, two major hurdles for large-scale adoption of direct recycling methods are impurity removal and a lack of elucidation on surface-rejuvenation mechanisms. A new low-temperature plasma process developed by a team of researchers from the University of California, Irvine (www.uci.edu<\/a>), Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL; Upton, N.Y.; www.bnl.gov<\/a>), Honda Research Institute USA (Columbus, Ohio; usa.honda-ri.com<\/a>) and Princeton NuEnergy, Inc. (Monmouth Junction, N.J.; www.pnecycle.com<\/a>) enables the efficient removal of carbon and fluorine impurities and supports high-performance rejuvenation of spent battery cathodes via re-lithiation. Complete elimination of these C and F impurities is typically quite difficult, but using plasma-generated oxygen radicals, carbon impurities are oxidized to CO2 and fluorine impurities are converted into volatile fluorinated compounds (such as HF and COF2) that are easier to remove.<\/p>\n

\"battery<\/p>\n

End-of-life batteries (Shutterstock)<\/p>\n

Carbon and fluorine impurities in battery-recycling<\/a> processes stem from residual carbon black and polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) material in cathode powders. They are especially problematic in re-lithiation processes because they hinder the diffusion of lithium and oxygen to the cathode surface. In experimental cycles with NMC (nickel-manganese-cobalt) battery pouch cells, the new low-temperature plasma method was shown to effectively eliminate surface impurities during re-lithiation, resulting in a reported 87% capacity retention for rejuvenated cathode pouch cells after 1,100 cycles. This exceeds current commercial standards, which show 86% retention after 1,000 cycles, according to the research team. Low-temperature operation helps to protect sensitive cathode materials from degradation and also reduces energy consumption compared to other recycling methods.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, the research findings shed light on previously little-understood physical mechanisms in re-lithiation reactions, including phenomena related to cation mixing and the restoration of certain crystal-lattice parameters. Details of this research were originally published in a recent issue of Joule.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" May 1, 2026 | By Mary Page Bailey Direct battery-recycling methods, such as re-lithiation \u2014 where…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":462958,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[77],"tags":[23311,18,19,17,91,133],"class_list":["post-462957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-battery-recycling","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-plasma","tag-science"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116498494689384676","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462957\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}