Recycling Graphite from Spent Lithium Batteries for Efficient Solar‐Driven Interfacial Evaporation to Obtain Clean Water

• Published in: ChemSusChem Vol. 16; no. 24; pp. e202300845 - n/a
• Main Authors: Han, Sheng‐Jie, Xu, Lei, Liu, Pan, Wu, Jia‐Li, Labiadh, Lazhar, Fu, Ming‐Lai, Yuan, Baoling
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Germany Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 19.12.2023
• Subjects: Acid leaching; Clean energy; Contaminants; Crosslinking; Desalination; Electromagnetic absorption; Energy harvesting; Evaporation rate; Evaporators; Graphite; Hydrogels; Lithium batteries; Lithium-ion batteries; Mechanical properties; Recycling; Seawater; Solar energy; solar evaporation; Solar radiation; spent lithium batteries; VOCs; Volatile organic compounds; Waste materials; Wastewater; desalination; spent lithium batteries; hydrogels; graphite; solar evaporation
• ISSN: 1864-5631; 1864-564X
• DOI: 10.1002/cssc.202300845

Solar‐driven interfacial evaporation technology is regarded as an attracting sustainable strategy for obtaining portable water from seawater and wastewater, and the recycle of waste materials to fabricate efficient photothermal materials as evaporator to efficiently utilize solar energy is very critical, but still difficult. To this purpose, graphite recovered from spent lithium‐ion batteries (SLIBs) was realized using a simple acid leaching method, and a reconstructed graphite‐based porous hydrogel (RG‐PH) was subsequently fabricated by crosslinking foaming method. The incorporation of reconstructed graphite (RG) improves the mechanical characteristics of hydrogels and the light absorption performance significantly. The evaporation rate of optimized RG‐PH can constantly reach 3.4278 kg m−2 h−1 for desalination under a one solar irradiation, and it also showed the excellent salt resistance in various salty water. Moreover, RG‐PH has a strong elimination of a variety of organic contaminants in wastewater, including the typical volatile organic compound of phenol. This research shows the potential application of flexible and durable solar evaporators made from waste materials in purifying seawater and wastewater, not only contributing to carbon neutrality by recycling graphite from SLIBs, but also ensuring the cost‐effectiveness harvest of solar energy for constantly obtaining clean water. For clean water: Based on graphite from spent lithium‐ion batteries, the reconstructed graphite porous hydrogel (RG‐PH) was successfully prepared by crosslinking foaming technology, which showed a high evaporation rate for desalination under one sunlight irradiation, and effectively removed various organic contaminants in wastewater, including typical volatile organic compound of phenol.