Development of a More Sustainable Hybrid Process for Lithium and Cobalt Recovery from Lithium-Ion Batteries

Lithium-ion batteries are widely used as a power source for portable devices and electrical vehicles (EVs). After their useful life, they can provide a secondary source from which to obtain some materials which make them up, such as lithium and cobalt. However, the metallurgical route which will be used to recover them must be considered. Therefore, is crucial that many efforts to develop more environmentally favorable recovery processes be pursued. Due to this, the present work aimed to use 1.5 M DL-malic acid and compare it to 2 M sulfuric acid, employing heat pretreatment of 1 h and 3 h to remove the powder cathode binder polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF); for all conditions, experiments were carried out with and without adding the oxidizing agent hydrogen peroxide. The PVDF temperature degradation occurred at 630 & DEG;C. The best yields occurred in the presence of H2O2 10% v/v and heat pretreatment. With sulfuric acid (1 h) it was possible to recover 33.49% Co and 4.63% Li, and (3 h) 36.36% Co and 4.64% Li. With DL-malic acid it was possible to recover (1 h) 29.78% Co and 3.44% Li, and (3 h) 32.73% Co and 3.99% Li.