Electrochemical Separation Technologies for Resource Recovery and Recycling

Global efforts toward carbon neutrality have impacted the industry and the market in various directions, and this is causing rapid changes in the production, use, and supply chain of various resources. For instance, explosive growth of the electric vehicle (EV) market induced significant increments of demands for lithium and other relevant elements. Meanwhile, it should be noted that the production of such resources from ores often result in a large amount of CO₂ emission and environmental pollutions, which endangers the sustainability of our world. Therefore, there is a wide agreement on the importance of developing clean technologies for recovering and recycling resources from various sources, which even include wastes. Herein, our recent research works on electrochemical separation technologies for efficient resource recovery and recycling will be presented. Electrode materials that have favorable crystal structures for highly selective extraction of specific elements are introduced, together with discussions on their behaviors during the operation. Based on these understandings, rationally designed resource-recovery electrodes are developed, and their performance and reliability are evaluated and demonstrated.