High Value-Added Utilization of Waste Hydrodesulfurization Catalysts: Low-Cost Synthesis of Cathode Materials for Lithium-Ion Batteries

This work introduces a one-step method for the preparation of layered oxide cathode materials utilizing pure Ni and Co mixed solution obtained from the waste hydrodesulfurization (HDS) catalyst. An efficient non-separation strategy with pyrometallurgical-hydrometallurgical (pyro-hydrometallurgical) process consisting of roasting and leaching is proposed. Most of the impurity metal elements such as Mo and V were removed by simple water leaching after the waste HDS catalyst was roasted with Na2CO3 at 650 °C for 2.5 h. Additionally, 93.9% Ni and 100.0% Co were recovered by H2SO4 leaching at 90 °C for 2.5 h. Then, LiNi0.533Co0.193Mn0.260V0.003Fe0.007Al0.004O2 (C–NCM) was successfully synthesized by hydroxide co-precipitation and high temperature solid phase methods using the above Ni and Co mixed solution. The final C–NCM material exhibits excellent electrochemical performance with a discharge specific capacity of 199.1 mAh g−1 at 0.1 C and a cycle retention rate of 79.7% after 200 cycles at 1 C. This novel process for the synthesis of cathode material can significantly improve production efficiency and realize the high added-value utilization of metal resources in a waste catalyst.