Erosive Ultrasonic Cleaning of Cathode Material of a Spent NMC Lithium-Ion Batteries

The authors propose a way of using ultrasound to clean cathode material of the aluminum foil of a spent lithium-ion battery. A general diagram of the device’s layout is developed, and the interaction between the main units of the structure is analyzed. The procedure is based on the cavitation effect of the ultrasonic erosion of solids placed in a liquid exposed to ultrasound. An expression is obtained for the depth of the coating layer that is removed from the tape during a single run through all cavitation zones of the device. An analytical and numerical analysis is performed of the dependence of the cleaning rate on the intensity of ultrasound, its frequency, the speed of the tape, and other parameters of the diagram. The possibility of effectively cleaning cathode material off the aluminum foil from an NMC-type lithium-ion battery is demonstrated experimentally.