Used Battery Cathode Materials Transform into ‘Catalysts’ Enhancing Next-Generation Secondary Battery Performance

Journal cover (left) and schematic diagram of recycling cathode materials from waste lithium-ion batteries as electrode catalysts for vanadium redox flow batteries.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Hwang Dooyul] At a time when waste battery disposal technology is emerging as a critical issue across various industrial sectors, an intriguing research result has been announced showing that cathode materials from waste batteries can be recycled as catalysts for next-generation secondary batteries.

Professor Go Minseong's research team at Pukyong National University has reportedly succeeded in improving the high-speed charge-discharge characteristics of vanadium redox flow batteries. Previously, cathode materials from waste lithium-ion batteries have attracted attention as next-generation large-capacity energy storage devices with no fire risk.

The electrodes of vanadium redox flow batteries are where reactions occur and play an important role in battery performance.

Carbon materials are mainly used for electrodes, but they have low reversibility, meaning they change state and do not fully return to the original state, causing battery performance degradation during charge-discharge cycles.

To solve this problem and enhance battery performance, catalysts that increase the reaction rate of the electrodes are applied. Professor Go Minseong's team used cathode materials from waste lithium-ion batteries as such catalysts.

The research team focused on the fact that cathode materials from waste lithium-ion batteries undergo changes in electronic structure and an increase in oxygen vacancies due to repeated charge-discharge cycles.

In full cell evaluations, electrodes without catalysts showed a sharp capacity drop after 281 cycles of high-speed charge-discharge due to high resistance.

On the other hand, electrodes with catalysts applied significantly reduced resistance during redox reactions of reactants due to the characteristics of the waste lithium-ion battery cathode materials, enabling more than 1000 cycles of high-speed charge-discharge.

Professor Go Minseong reported to the academic community a vanadium redox flow battery with high reversibility and improved high-speed charge-discharge characteristics by applying waste lithium-ion battery cathode materials as catalysts for carbon electrodes.

Professor Go said, “This research contributes not only to the development of high-speed charge-discharge vanadium redox flow batteries but also to catalyst design using waste lithium-ion battery cathode materials. Given the expected rapid increase in waste lithium-ion battery generation, this suggests a recycling method as catalysts, which can also have resource circulation effects.”

This research was conducted with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea and in collaboration with Dr. Jang Haesung of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) in the United States.

It was recognized for excellence in the international journal in the materials and energy field, Journal of Materials Chemistry A (IF=12.732), and was selected as a ‘Hot Paper’ in 2022. It was also chosen as the cover paper for issue 36 on September 28.

Professor Go Minsung (far right) and research team.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.