A Novel Pyrometallurgical Recycling Process for Lithium-Ion Batteries and Its Application to the Recycling of LCO and LFP

oleh: Alexandra Holzer, Stefan Windisch-Kern, Christoph Ponak, Harald Raupenstrauch

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: MDPI AG 2021-01-01

Deskripsi

The bottleneck of recycling chains for spent lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) is the recovery of valuable metals from the black matter that remains after dismantling and deactivation in pre‑treatment processes, which has to be treated in a subsequent step with pyrometallurgical and/or hydrometallurgical methods. In the course of this paper, investigations in a heating microscope were conducted to determine the high-temperature behavior of the cathode materials lithium cobalt oxide (LCO—chem., LiCoO<sub>2</sub>) and lithium iron phosphate (LFP—chem., LiFePO<sub>4</sub>) from LIB with carbon addition. For the purpose of continuous process development of a novel pyrometallurgical recycling process and adaptation of this to the requirements of the LIB material, two different reactor designs were examined. When treating LCO in an Al<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub> crucible, lithium could be removed at a rate of 76% via the gas stream, which is directly and purely available for further processing. In contrast, a removal rate of lithium of up to 97% was achieved in an MgO crucible. In addition, the basic capability of the concept for the treatment of LFP was investigated whereby a phosphorus removal rate of 64% with a simultaneous lithium removal rate of 68% was observed.