Researchers in the United States have successfully recovered lithium from battery waste using a low-cost, electrochemically driven process. Lithium is a vital material for rechargeable batteries and is increasingly vulnerable to supply chain disruptions.

The new technique was tested on commonly used lithium-based batteries. It involves dissolving metals from spent batteries into an organic solvent and then using an electrochemical cell equipped with a polymer-coated electrode to selectively capture lithium. The copolymer used in the process enables lithium to be separated from other metals, which is a key challenge in battery recycling.

Figure 1. lithium from battery waste.

“The presence of competing metals in organic leachates makes lithium extraction difficult,” explained Xiao Su, a chemical and biomolecular engineering professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. “Our approach uses a copolymer that selectively captures lithium from these solvents and can be electrochemically regenerated.”

In the laboratory, the team dismantles old batteries, extracts the metals into an organic solvent, and then transfers the mixture into an electrochemical cell. The specialized polymer on the electrode acts like a sponge, absorbing lithium ions from the solution. Once loaded with lithium, the electrode is moved to a different solution where an applied voltage releases the lithium for collection, allowing the electrode to be reused for additional cycles.

Su’s team also conducted an economic analysis and found that, using a three-stage scale-up strategy, the recovered lithium could be produced at a cost competitive with current market prices.

With global lithium demand rising and concerns over resource shortages and supply chain reliability increasing, recovering lithium from spent lithium-ion batteries has become a high priority. The research, published in ACS Energy Letters, introduces a redox-active crown ether copolymer designed to enable highly selective and reversible lithium extraction from organic battery leachates. Figure 1 shows lithium from battery waste.

The system combines a lithium-selective chemical unit with a redox-active unit to replace traditional acid-based regeneration with an electrochemical process. This design doubles lithium uptake while maintaining selectivity against other metals such as iron, cobalt, and nickel.

Techno-economic analysis shows that the process is energy-efficient and could produce lithium at an estimated cost of about $12.70 per kilogram—competitive with current commercial pricing [1]. The researchers emphasize that the method offers a scalable, chemical-free pathway for recovering critical materials and could significantly reduce the environmental and economic costs of lithium extraction.

While further work is needed to scale the technology and refine process modeling, the approach demonstrates strong potential to make lithium recycling more sustainable and to support a circular supply chain for battery materials.

References:

1. https://interestingengineering.com/energy/lithium-recovered-from-battery-waste

Cite this article:

Keerthana S (2025), Lithium Has Been Extracted from Discarded Batteries Using a Cost-Effective, Electrochemically Driven Recovery Process, AnaTechMaz, pp.305