The insatiable demand for lithium in portable energy storage necessitates a sustainable and low-carbon approach to its recovery. Conventional hydrometallurgical and pyrometallurgical methods heavily involve hazardous chemicals and significant CO2 emissions. Herein, by integrating electrode oxidation with electrolyte oxidation, we establish a photovoltaic-driven “dual-oxidation” seawater electrolyzer system for low-carbon footprint and high lithium recovery. A 98.96% lithium leaching rate with 99.60% product purity was demonstrated for lithium recovery from spent LiFePO4 cathode materials. In-depth mechanism studies reveal that the electric field-driven electrode oxidation and in situ generated oxidative electrolyte synergetically contributes to lithium ions leaching via a structural framework elements oxidation and particle corrosion splitting synergy. This dual-oxidation mechanism facilitates rapid and efficient lithium extraction with broad universality, offering significant economic and environmental benefits. Our work showcases a promising strategy for integrating dual oxidation within a photovoltaic-driven seawater electrolyzer, paving the way for low-carbon lithium recovery from diverse solid wastes and minerals within a sustainable circular economy.
Na-ion batteries (NIBs) are sustainable alternatives to Li-ion technologies due to the abundant and widely-distributed resources. However, the most promising cathode materials of NIBs so far, O3 layered oxides, suffer from serious air instability issues, which significantly increases the manufactural cost and carbon footprint because of the long-term use of dry rooms. While some feasible strategies are proposed via case studies, universal design strategies for air-stable cathodes are yet to be established. Herein, the air degradation mechanisms of O3 cathodes are investigated via combined first-principles and experimental approaches, with bond dissociation energy proposed as an effective descriptor for predicting air stability. Experimental validations in various unary, binary, and ternary O3 cathodes confirm that the air stability can indeed be effectively improved via simple compositional design. Guided by the predictive model, the designed material can sustain 30-day air-storage without structural or electrochemical degradation. It is calculated that such air-stable cathodes can significantly reduce both energy consumption (≈4 100 000 kWh) and carbon footprint (≈2200-ton CO 2 ) annually for a 2 GWh NIBs manufactory. Therefore, the fundamental understandings and universal design strategy presented open an avenue for rational materials design of NIBs toward both elemental and manufactural sustainability.
Given the scarcity of rhenium resources, recovering rhenium from waste materials represents a strategically viable solution. This review focuses on three novel aspects in the field of rhenium recovery. It integrates pyrometallurgical (KOH-K₂CO₃ molten salt), hydrometallurgical (solvent extraction/ion exchange), and electrochemical (NaOH electrolysis) methods into a unified ‘temperature-medium-electrochemical potential’ framework, proposing oxidative volatilisation with three-zone tube furnace fractionation for W-Mo-Re alloys. The study evaluates AI sorting, task-specific ionic liquids, and microwave-synthesised nano-resins, demonstrating their capacity to boost recovery rates from 40% to 92% for low-grade rhenium (<2 ppm). Additionally, it quantifies carbon footprint reductions through secondary resource recovery, establishing a circularity-clean energy correlation model that redefines strategic metal management. Case studies on Pt-Re catalyst regeneration and aerospace alloy recycling validate co-extraction solutions for multicomponent systems.
危险品化学品经营许可证（带存储）