Engineering a closed-loop electrochemical pathway for cadmium recovery and aqueous battery reutilization.

A closed-loop electrochemical strategy enables selective recovery of cadmium from model Cd-containing waste electrolytes and regenerable aqueous Cd metal anodes with 99.98% average Coulombic efficiency.

• Why it matters: Cd waste from zinc processing is toxic, yet electrochemical reutilization is constrained by missing routes that couple selective recovery with stable metal-anode operation.
• What they did: Using a three-step potential-programmed electrodeposition process, the method recovers Cd and builds compact Cd(002)-textured electrodes with tunable areal capacity, then adds cesium iodide to reconstruct the Cd-electrolyte interface.
• The result: The CsI-modified interface supports iodide-dominated, cesium-assisted control of desolvation, ion flux, corrosion, and Cd growth, enabling stable high-rate plating/stripping and full-cell operation in Cd||I2 coin and pouch cells, with reextraction, regeneration, and reuse of failed anodes.