Manufacturing and Recycling of Lithium Ion Batteries

Course Project for CL 201 [Chemical Processes Calculations]


Overview

Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) have become a modern-day solution for almost every energy storage problem. The applications of LIBs have increased rapidly, and it is expected to follow a similar trend in the upcoming time. Therefore, a sufficient supply of high-quality Lithium (99.5% pure) and other battery components is vital. Currently, there are some predominant sources of Lithium that are generally used in the manufacturing of Lithium. South American countries like Chile and Argentina contain vast reserves of Lithium in the form of lithium brine which constitutes about 43% of the world’s total reserves. These countries also have mines that produce ores like Spodumene, Petalite, Lepidolite and several other lithium-rich minerals. Currently, around 5% of the total Lithium is also incurred from recycling the lithium batteries. However, this percentage is bound to grow in the future. Lithium manufacturing is still a very young industry, and therefore, it has a massive scope of development.

Results

On doing this project, we found that Lithium-ion batteries usually contain Graphite and Cobalt Oxide as their Anode and Cathode, respectively, because they provide appropriate potential vs specific capacity ratios. Below is the graph showing various Cathode and Anode materials.

image


Created with ❤️ by Mumuksh Tayal