Recycling spent zinc manganese dioxide batteries through synthesizing Zn-Mn ferrite magnetic materials

A novel process to reclaim spent zinc manganese dioxide batteries (SDBs) through synthesizing Zn-Mn ferrite magnetic materials is present. Firstly, the dismantling, watering, magnetism, baking and griddling steps were consecutively carried out to obtain iron battery shells, zinc grains and manganese compounds using the collected SDBs, and then these separated substances were dissolved with 4 mol L−1 H2SO4 to prepare FeSO4, ZnSO4 and MnSO4 reactant solutions. Secondly, Zn-Mn ferrites with stoichiometric ratio of Mn0.26Zn0.24FeO2 were synthesized using chemical co precipitation process with ammonium oxalate precipitator. The XRD results showed that the obtained Zn-Mn ferrites had spinel structure and high purity at the calcining temperatures of 850-1250 °C. With the increase of calcining temperature, the finer crystalline structure could be formed, and their intensity of saturation magnetization reached the highest value at 1150 °C. The magnetization performances of Zn-Mn ferrites prepared from the SDBs were similar to that of from analysis reagents, suggesting the feasibility to synthesize Zn-Mn ferrites with high properties from SDBs.