Abstract
The present work offers a study on the engineering implications of the recovery of valuable fractions from industrially collected lithium battery (LIB) waste by mechanical and hydrometallurgical processes in HCl media. Direct leaching of LIB waste provides a possibility for Li extraction, a component that is lost into the slag fraction in the state-of-art high temperature processes. The challenges arising from the heterogeneous composition of industrial battery waste are highlighted, and the behavior of main metals present such as Co, Cu, Li, Mn, Ni and Al is observed. It is shown that mechanical separation processes can form fractions rich on Cu and Al, although subsequent refining stages are necessary. Regarding direct leaching, fast kinetics were found, as complete Li dissolution can be achieved in ca. 120 min. Furthermore, high solid/liquid ratio (>1/10) is required to increase metal value concentrations, resulting in a viscous slurry due to the graphite, plastics and other undissolved materials, which challenges filtration and washing of leach residue. Neutralization of the product liquid solution (PLS) result in co-precipitation of valuable battery metals along with Fe and Al. The highest value of LIBs lies in Co, subjected for solvent extraction (SX) or direct precipitation to make an intermediate product. SX can provide selectivity whereas Na2CO3 precipitation provides a fast route for Co-Ni bulk production. Li2CO3 precipitation from the remaining PLS is possible as zabuyelite - however, due to heterogeneity of the battery waste, the recovery of Li2CO3 with battery-grade purity remains a difficult task to be achieved by direct precipitation route.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 257-266 |
Number of pages | 10 |
Journal | Resources, Conservation and Recycling |
Volume | 142 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Mar 2019 |
MoE publication type | A1 Journal article-refereed |
Funding
Authors would like to thank Petteri Halli and Chao Peng for the help in performing XRD analyses. Authors would also like to thank Alexander Chernyaev for performing leaching experiments. The authors of this research paper are grateful to the METYK-project (grant number 3254/31/2015 ), funded by Business Finland (BF) . The research was also supported by the Strategic Research Council at the Academy of Finland , project CloseLoop (grant number 303454 ), RawMatTERS Finland Infrastructure (RAMI) funded by Academy of Finland and CMEco (grant number 7405/31/2016 ), also funded by BF .
Keywords
- Characterization
- Hydrochloric acid leaching
- Lithium carbonate precipitation
- Recycling
- Solvent extraction