Wet Li-Ion Battery Disassembly for Fire-Safe Material Separation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing methods for disassembling waste lithium-ion batteries require discharging and drying, which can lead to fire risks and incomplete separation of components due to thermite reactions and mechanical screening limitations.
Innovation Solution
A method that involves directly tearing the battery pack or cell with water and electricity without discharging, followed by wet screening, electrolyte recovery, magnetic separation of iron, wet degumming, and subsequent crushing and jigging separation to achieve complete separation of components.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If discharging is performed before disassembling, then safety is improved, but production efficiency deteriorates due to inability to achieve large-scale production
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts and removes the housing of the battery pack first, then performs disassembling operations on the exposed battery cells without requiring prior discharging. This extraction approach allows direct access to battery components while maintaining safety through controlled water spraying during the tearing process, thereby achieving both safety and large-scale production efficiency.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent performs preliminary housing removal before discharging, exposing the battery cells for direct tearing and disassembling. This preliminary action eliminates the need for time-consuming discharging steps while maintaining safety through immediate water protection during the tearing process, thus improving production efficiency without compromising safety.
2Reliability
If wet discharging is performed, then discharging is achieved, but time consumption increases significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary housing removal to expose battery cells before any discharging operation. This allows direct access to battery terminals for immediate discharging or skipping discharging entirely and proceeding directly to tearing and disassembling, thereby eliminating the time-consuming wet discharging process while ensuring discharging completion if needed.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent enables skipping the wet discharging step entirely by performing housing removal first, then directly proceeding to tearing and disassembling operations with water protection. This skipping approach rushes through the process by eliminating unnecessary time-consuming steps while maintaining safety and achieving the same discharging effect through alternative means.
3Object-affected harmful factors
If drying is performed before crushing, then fire risk is reduced, but process complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary housing removal and immediate water spraying during the tearing process before crushing. This preliminary water protection action maintains moisture in the battery materials throughout the process, preventing fire risks during subsequent crushing operations without requiring a separate drying step, thereby reducing process complexity while controlling fire risk.
Solution Approach 2:
Instead of drying before crushing to reduce fire risk, the patent inverts the approach by maintaining moisture through continuous water spraying during tearing and crushing operations. This inversion eliminates the drying step entirely, reducing process complexity while effectively controlling fire risk through water protection throughout the entire disassembling process.
4Productivity
If mechanical screening is used for separation, then separation is achieved, but separation completeness deteriorates due to mixed particle sizes
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the separation process into multiple stages: first separating aluminum foil from other materials, then separately processing copper foil and electrode materials. This segmentation allows each separation stage to focus on specific materials with similar properties, achieving complete separation despite varying particle sizes and improving both productivity and separation completeness.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies different separation methods to different materials based on their local properties: using magnetic separation for iron-containing materials, density separation for aluminum foil, and flotation for copper and electrode materials. This localized approach ensures each material is separated by the most effective method, achieving complete separation while maintaining high productivity.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This method allows for complete separation of components without the need for discharging and drying, thereby eliminating fire risks and improving the efficiency and completeness of the separation process.
Implementation Method 1
directly tearing a battery pack or a cell of the waste lithium-ion battery with water and electricity without discharging
Implementation Method 2
removing iron by magnetic separation
Implementation Method 3
performing jigging separation to obtain copper powder, aluminum powder, positive and negative electrode materials, plastic powder and separator pulp
Data Source
AI summary
A method for disassembling and separating a waste lithium-ion battery comprises: directly tearing a battery pack or a cell of the waste lithium-ion battery with water and electricity without discharging after removing a housing, then performing first wet screening, directly performing wet degumming without drying after recovering an electrolyte and removing iron by magnetic separation, then performing first crushing with water, third wet screening and second crushing with water after performing second wet screening, and finally performing jigging separation to obtain copper powder, aluminum powder, positive and negative electrode materials, plastic powder and separator pulp.