Recent progress and perspective on batteries made from nuclear waste

Sustainable energy sources are an immediate need to cope with the imminent issue of climate change the world is facing today.In particular,the long-lasting miniatured power sources that can supply energy continually to power handheld gadgets,sensors,electronic devices,unmanned airborne vehicles in space and extreme mining are some of the examples where this is an acute need.It is known from basic physics that radioactive materials decay over few years and some nuclear materials have their half-life until thousands of years.The past five decades of research have been spent harnessing the decay energy of the radioactive materials to develop batteries that can last until the radioactive reaction continues.Thus,an emergent opportunity of industrial symbiosis to make use of nuclear waste by using radioactive waste as raw material to develop bat-teries with long shelf life presents a great opportunity for sustainable energy resource development.However,the current canon of research on this topic is scarce.This perspective draws fresh discussions on the topic while highlighting future directions in this wealthy arena of research.Graphical abstract A long-lasting miniaturised nuclear battery utilising 14C radioactive isotope as fuel.

Separation of cadmium and nickel from waste Ni-Cd batteries

To separate the cadmium and nickel resources in waste Ni-Cd batteries, aself-designed vacuum distillation recycling system was studied under laboratory conditions. Theeffects of system temperature, operating pressure, and time on the separation of Ni and Cd werestudied respectively. The mechanism of vacuum thermal recycling was also discussed. Results showthat vacuum distillation is a very effective separation method for waste Ni-Cd batteries. At aconstant pressure, the increase of temperature can improve the separating efficiency of Cd. When thetemperature is 1 173 K, cadmium can evaporate completely from the samples during 3 h at 10 Pa. Thereduction of pressure in a certain range is effective to the separating of Cd from Ni-Cd batteriesby vacuum distillation.

Separation and recovery of rare earth from waste nickel-metal hydride batteries by phosphate based extraction-precipitation

A novel type of extraction-precipitation strategy based on phosphate was developed to recover rare earth(RE,i.e.,La,Ce,Nd,and Pr)from waste nickel-metal hydride(NiMH)batteries.This method does not require saponification and organic solvents.The novel phosphates,i.e.,dibenzyl phosphate(DBP),diphenyl phosphate(DPP),triphenyl phosphate(TPP)were studied as extraction-precipitants.DBP has high precipitation efficiencies for RE^(3+),which can reach 97.84%,100%,100%and 99.77%,respectively.In addition,the precipitation efficiencies of Mn^(2+),Co^(2+)and Ni^(2+)are less than 1.75%.DBP-RE has the largest particle size(D10=52.6μm,D50=135.35μm,D90=296.08μm),which is much larger than the precipitations formed by NH_(4)HCO_(3),H_(2)C2O_(4),CaO and MgO.The larger precipitation particle sizes contribute to improving the solid-liquid separation efficiency.With 3 mol/L hydrochloric acid,the stripping efficiency of DBP-RE reaches 98.60%,and the purity of recovered RE is 99.85%.The regenerated DBP can be directly used for the recycling extraction.Therefore,the novel extraction-precipitation strategy is a green and sustainable separation method.

Mn3O4/carbon nanotube nanocomposites recycled from waste alkaline Zn–MnO2 batteries as high-performance energy materials

Alkaline zinc manganese dioxide（Zn–MnO2）batteries are widely used in everyday life. Recycling of waste alkaline Zn–MnO2 batteries has always been a hot environmental concern. In this study, a simple and costeffective process for synthesizing Mn3O4/carbon nanotube（CNT） nanocomposites from recycled alkaline Zn–MnO2 batteries is presented. Manganese oxide was recovered from spent Zn–MnO2 battery cathodes. The Mn3O4/CNT nanocomposites were produced by ball milling the recovered manganese oxide in a commercial multi-wall carbon nanotubes（MWCNTs） solution. Scanning electron microscopy（SEM） analysis demonstrates that the nanocomposite has a unique three-dimensional（3D） bird nest structure. Mn3O4 nanoparticles are homogeneously distributed on MWCNT framework. Mn3O4/CNT nanocomposites were evaluated as an anode material for lithium-ion batteries, exhibiting a highly reversible specific capacitance of -580 mA h·g^-1 after 100 cycles. Moreover, Mn3O4/CNT nanocomposite also shows a fairly positive onset potential of -0.15 V and quite high oxygen reducibility when considered as an electrocatalyst for oxygen reduction reaction.