ArticleScientific reports2026
Direct recycling of end-of-life lithium-ion batteries cathode active materials by hydrothermal route.
Article in Scientific reports, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
Abstract
At the present time, the increasing use of lithium-ion batteries in electric vehicles has created unprecedented pressure for end-of-life management and resource recovery. This article reports on a direct recycling approach to regenerate spent cathode active materials, in particular Ni-rich NMC622, via a hydrothermal re-lithiation strategy and thermal annealing. An initial screening process was established to separate high purity spent cathode active materials from disassembled LG Chem pouch cells from Hyundai KONA battery packs. A full factorial design was applied to provide a meaningful statistical analysis of the influence of hydrothermal variables - LiOH concentration, temperature and reaction time. The results indicate that lithium concentration and temperature have a strong main effect on regeneration efficiency, while interaction effects with time are more influential for lithium incorporation. The regenerated cathode active materials exhibited structural, morphological and electrochemical performance comparable to commercial NMC622, especially for samples treated at 160 °C, 4 M LiOH and 1 h reaction time. This process demonstrates the feasibility of regenerating degraded cathode active materials for reuse in new batteries, contributing to circular economy strategies and critical raw material independence in Europe. On the other hand, detailed material characterization validated the recovery of layered crystalline structure and localized cation mixing, conditions required for best battery performance. Regenerated electrodes retained high specific capacity during electrochemical testing and displayed good stability over 50 cycles under the conditions tested. Interactions were quantitatively significant and through the statistical analysis approach, optimal synthesis conditions were directed based on interaction limits. Against this background, the proposed method circumvents the high energy consumption and material losses of the pyrometallurgical route and the secondary pollution and reagents needed in the hydrometallurgical leaching process. In summary, direct recycling appears to be a more resource-efficient and sustainable route for the recovery of cathode materials in future battery supply chains.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.