Recovery of lithium and cobalt from waste lithium ion batteries of mobile phone

• Recovery of Co and Li from spent LIBs was performed by hydrometallurgical route.
• Under the optimum condition, 99.1% of lithium and 70.0% of cobalt were leached.
• The mechanism of the dissolution of lithium and cobalt was studied.
• Activation energy for lithium and cobalt were found to be 32.4 kJ/mol and 59.81 kJ/mol, respectively.
• After metal recovery, residue was washed before disposal to the environment.

In view of the stringent environmental regulations, availability of limited natural resources and ever increasing need of alternative energy critical elements, an environmental eco-friendly leaching process is reported for the recovery of lithium and cobalt from the cathode active materials of spent lithium-ion batteries of mobile phones. The experiments were carried out to optimize the process parameters for the recovery of lithium and cobalt by varying the concentration of leachant, pulp density, reductant volume and temperature. Leaching with 2 M sulfuric acid with the addition of 5% H2O2 (v/v) at a pulp density of 100 g/L and 75 °C resulted in the recovery of 99.1% lithium and 70.0% cobalt in 60 min. H2O2 in sulfuric acid solution acts as an effective reducing agent, which enhance the percentage leaching of metals. Leaching kinetics of lithium in sulfuric acid fitted well to the chemical controlled reaction model i.e. 1 − (1 − X)1/3 = kct. Leaching kinetics of cobalt fitted well to the model ‘ash diffusion control dense constant sizes spherical particles’ i.e. 1 − 3(1 − X)2/3 + 2(1 − X) = kct. Metals could subsequently be separated selectively from the leach liquor by solvent extraction process to produce their salts by crystallization process from the purified solution.

Recovery of valuable metals from scrap batteries of mobile phone.Figure optionsDownload as PowerPoint slide