Beneficiation of cobalt, copper and aluminum from wasted lithium-ion batteries by mechanical processing

• Mechanical processing was effective in recovering cobalt, copper and aluminum from LIB.
• Cobalt was mainly distributed in the finer fractions of LIB.
• Copper and aluminum were distributed in the higher granulometric ranges of LIB.
• Mechanical processing provides a potential method for metal preconcentration from LIB.

Lithium-ion batteries are widely used as a power source for portable equipment. In the present work a sample of batteries was submitted to a series of mechanical processes to recover cobalt, copper and aluminum. The initial milling process promoted a previous particle distribution of the metal content fractions. Each of these fractions underwent to the most suitable recovery process according to their composition, especially regarding the presence of copper and magnetic metals such as iron and cobalt. The magnetic separation was efficient for particle sizes from 1 mm to 2 mm, resulting in a concentrate with up to 54% copper. The gravimetric separation with a Wilfley table, performed on the fraction with lower concentration of magnetic metals, resulted in a concentrate with up to 66% copper. Cobalt is found mainly in the fine material with particle sizes smaller than 1 mm. Quantitative chemical analysis has shown promising results when the concentrate is leached, with the cobalt concentration corresponding to 80% of the dissolved elements. The results demonstrate that it is possible to obtain rich concentrates of cobalt and copper through mechanical processing of lithium-ion batteries, and that it is feasible to concentrate aluminum as a by-product by applying additional mechanical processes.