Electrochemical Nucleation and Growth of Cobalt after Leaching Waste Lithium-Ion Batteries Using a Deep Eutectic Solvent

Abstract The present work deals with the nucleation and growth process of metallic cobalt clusters onto glassy carbon, and the development of an environmentally friendly recycling process for the recovery of cobalt as a value-added product from spent lithium-ion batteries (LiBs), using a deep eutectic solvent formed by choline chloride and urea, termed reline. It was shown that reline works as leaching medium to extract Co(II) from cathode powders of dismantled spent batteries, thereby obtaining, after the electrodeposition process using the same reline as the operating bath, a solid Co metal phase onto a glassy carbon electrode. Finally, supplementary relevant characterization of the deposits formed was carried out by means of scanning electron microscopy, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and X-rays photoelectrons spectroscopy.