High-efficiency core-shell magnetic heavy-metal absorbents derived from spent-LiFePO4 Battery

Search for simple and efficient recycling methods to utilize spent lithium-ion batteries is crucial for achieving sustainable resource development and reducing the hazardous materials released from the spent batteries. Herein, we have developed a new strategy to utilize the spent LiFePO batteries by utilizing the cathode plate as raw material to synthesize mesoporous core-shell adsorbent Mm@SiO (Mm denoted as the magnetic material) through a simple alkaline leaching process. The as-converted material exhibits excellent adsorption capacity when it has been used to remove heavy metal ions in heavy metal polluted water. The adsorption capacities for Cu, Cd, and Mn have been achieved up to 71.23, 80.31 and 68.73 mg g, respectively. The detailed adsorption mechanism has been elucidated with comprehensive characterization techniques, including TEM, XPS, NEXAS, and EXAFS, the edge shared [CuO] bipyramids can be fit against the EXAFS data to represent the atomic-scale local structure after Mm@SiO adsorbs Cu. The present work demonstrates a novel routine to reutilize the spent lithium batteries, which is of great importance to achieve sustainable development based on the “waste-to-treasure” and “waste-to-control-waste” strategy for simultaneously reducing the hazardous release from industrial solid waste and heavy metal polluted water.