With the growing applications of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) in many areas, their recycling becomes a necessary task. Although great effort has been made in LIB recycling, there remains an urgent need for green and energy-efficient approaches. Here we report a non-destructive approach to regenerate cathode materials by hydrothermal treatment of cycled electrode particles followed by short annealing. Unlike the conventional chemical leaching or solid-state synthesis approach, which either requires complicated steps of leaching, precipitation and waste treatment or relies on the chemical analysis of the Li/Co ratio from cell to cell, our non-destructive approach is much simpler and more environmentally friendly, and can easily process batteries with different capacity degradation conditions. In addition, the regenerated LiCoO₂ particles can retain their original morphology and structure, and provide high specific capacity and cycling stability. Importantly, they show much better rate capability than particles regenerated through the solid-state synthesis approach. Our work demonstrates a greener, simpler and more energy-efficient strategy to recycle and regenerate faded LiCoO₂ cathode materials with high electrochemical performance. This approach can be widely used to recycle and regenerate LiCoO₂ cathodes on a large scale, and can be potentially applied to other types of cathode materials in LIBs and mixed cathode chemistry.

中文翻译：

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从废锂离子电池中有效再生LiCoO ₂：直接采用高性能活性颗粒的方法

随着锂离子电池（LIB）在许多领域的日益增长的应用，对其进行回收成为必不可少的任务。尽管在LIB回收方面已经做出了巨大努力，但仍然迫切需要绿色和节能方法。在这里，我们报告了一种非破坏性方法，可以通过对循环的电极颗粒进行水热处理，然后进行短时间的退火来再生阴极材料。与传统的化学浸提或固态合成方法不同，传统的化学浸提或固态合成方法需要复杂的浸提，沉淀和废物处理步骤，或者依赖于电池之间Li / Co比的化学分析，而我们的无损检测方法则更加简单且更环保，并且可以轻松处理具有不同容量退化条件的电池。另外，再生的LiCoO_2个粒子可以保留其原始形态和结构，并提供高比容量和循环稳定性。重要的是，它们显示出比通过固态合成方法再生的颗粒更好的速率能力。我们的工作展示了一种更环保，更简单，更节能的策略，可以以高电化学性能回收和再生褪色的LiCoO ₂阴极材料。该方法可广泛用于大规模回收和再生LiCoO ₂阴极，并可潜在地应用于LIB和混合阴极化学中的其他类型的阴极材料。