Direct recycling of lithium iron phosphate cathode materials via electrical pulsed discharge and dry attritor treatment

A dry direct recycling process using electrical pulsed discharge (EPD) and attritor treatment was developed for spent lithium iron phosphate (LFP) cathodes. Electrochemical re-evaluation confirmed the direct recyclability of cathode active materials (CAMs). EPD selectively delaminated the cathode layer from the aluminum current collector, recovering LFP aggregates with 0.74 wt% Al contamination in the > 2 mm fraction. Attritor treatment disaggregated the recovered LFP while maintaining low Al contamination, producing a < 63 μm fraction. TEM, XRD, and thermal analyses confirmed the preservation of the carbon coating and crystal structure. The recovered LFP was reused for electrode fabrication without using pristine material. Electrodes fabricated entirely from recovered LFP exhibited stable charge–discharge behavior, and laminated full cells retained approximately 80 % of their initial capacity after 300 cycles. These results demonstrate the feasibility of the direct recycling of degraded LFP cathodes using EPD and mechanical processing.