Expeditious Full Discharging Method without Voltage Rebound Issue for Safe Battery Recycling

Abstract

To achieve recycling without safety hazards by explosion of spent batteries, an efficient full discharging procedure is required to stabilize the batteries before recycling. However, typical salt solution discharging technique has environmental pollution, inefficiency, and safety issues due to wastewater emission, slow discharging rate, and severe voltage rebound. Electrical discharging techniques can be applied to overcome these problems, but the typical constant-current and constant current constant-voltage modes have a trade-off relationship between discharge time and voltage rebound. In this study, we propose reverse voltage mode as an expeditious and safe electrical discharging protocol that effectively addresses the tradeoff between discharging time and voltage rebound. The proposed reverse voltage mode for full discharging method was proven to be effective regardless of the electrode crystal structure or the battery form factor. This result is expected to present new methodology for pre-stabilization of spent batteries for more eco-friendly and stable recycling.