Recycling of Rechargeable Batteries: Insights from a Bibliometrics-Based Analysis of Emerging Publishing and Research Trends

Recycling rechargeable batteries while addressing environmental burden requires the conversion to scrap materials into high added-value products. Statistical analysis can help to understand hot spots and difficulties in recycling technologies, to develop breakthrough recycling technologies. Herein, a bibliometrics-based analysis is applied to mine the patents and scientific literature from 1999 to 2020 and identifies the research trends of rechargeable battery recycling globally. The investigations demonstrate that the recycling of batteries experiences three important stages. Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) recycling has dominated the number of patent applications and articles published, followed by lead-acid batteries, nickel–metal hydride (Ni-MH) batteries, and nickel–cadmium (Ni–Cd) batteries. Recycling enterprises have more distributed over patents, while universities or research institutions contribute more to literary publications. Technology distribution of electrical/metallurgy/chemistry/environmental protection and other fields, with strong interdisciplinary characteristics, occurs. With the countries from the policy aspect of strict control of environmental protection and the improvement on resource demands, recycling technology still has great room for improvements. Industrial policies, especially pollution prevention norms, and standards provide important support for the research and application of related technologies. The “5M” and “3S” principles should be implemented in technology and policy for next-generation recycling technology, respectively.