title: Spent lithium-ion battery recycling - Reductive ammonia leaching of metals from cathode scrap by sodium sulphite.
abstract: Recycling of spent lithium-ion batteries has attracted wide attention because of their high content of valuable and hazardous metals. One of the difficulties for effective metal recovery is the separation of different metals from the solution after leaching. In this research, a full hydrometallurgical process is developed to selectively recover valuable metals (Ni, Co and Li) from cathode scrap of spent lithium ion batteries. By introducing ammonia-ammonium sulphate as the leaching solution and sodium sulphite as the reductant, the total selectivity of Ni, Co and Li in the first-step leaching solution is more than 98.6% while it for Mn is only 1.36%. In detail understanding of the selective leaching process is carried out by investigating the effects of parameters such as leaching reagent composition, leaching time (0-480min), agitation speed (200-700rpm), pulp density (10-50g/L) and temperature (323-353K). It was found that Mn is primarily reduced from Mn4+into Mn2+into the solution as [Formula: see text] while it subsequently precipitates out into the residue in the form of (NH4)2Mn(SO3)2·H2O. Ni, Co and Li are leached and remain in the solution either as metallic ion or amine complexes. The optimised leaching conditions can be further obtained and the leaching kinetics is found to be chemical reaction control under current leaching conditions. As a result, this research is potentially beneficial for further optimisation of the spent lithium ion battery recycling process after incorporating with metal extraction from the leaching solution.
authors.affiliation: Division of Environment Technology and Engineering, Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China.
authors.forename: Xiaohong
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.affiliation: Division of Environment Technology and Engineering, Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China; National Engineering Research Center of Distillation Technology, School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China.
authors.forename: Wenfang
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.affiliation: Solid Waste and Chemicals Management Center, Ministry of Environmental Protection of China, Beijing 100029, China.
authors.forename: Xihua
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Division of Environment Technology and Engineering, Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China.
authors.forename: Mingming
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: He
authors.affiliation: Division of Environment Technology and Engineering, Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China.
authors.forename: Xiao
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: Division of Environment Technology and Engineering, Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China; National Engineering Research Center of Distillation Technology, School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China.
authors.forename: Hongbin
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Cao
authors.affiliation: Division of Environment Technology and Engineering, Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China; National Engineering Research Center of Distillation Technology, School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China.
authors.forename: Yi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Division of Environment Technology and Engineering, Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China. Electronic address: zhisun@126.com.
authors.forename: Zhi
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Sun
mesh_terms: D000641:Ammonia / Q000737:chemistry*; D011211:Electric Power Supplies; D004566:Electrodes; D007700:Kinetics; D008094:Lithium; D008670:Metals / Q000737:chemistry / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D059027:Recycling / Q000379:methods*; D013447:Sulfites; D013696:Temperature; D013997:Time Factors; D014961:X-Ray Diffraction
chemical_list: D008670:Metals; D013447:Sulfites; D000641:Ammonia; D008094:Lithium; C025026:sodium sulfite
keywords: Cathode scrap; Kinetics; Recovery; Selective leaching; Spent LIBs