Study on separation of cobalt and lithium salts from waste mobile-phone batteries

The metals in waste mobile-phone batteries may cause environmental pollution. In this paper, leaching with H2SO4+H2O2, P507 extraction, and sedimentation with oxalic acid and carbonic acid were used to deal with waste batteries and obtain cobalt and lithium salts by separation, which shows an easy and feasible method with less waste water disposal. The effects of sulphuric acid concentration, pH value, and lithium ions on the recovery were investigated. When the sulphuric acid concentration was over 0.4 mol/L, the loss of cobalt increased significantly. If pH value of 3.5 was used, it was easy for cobalt and lithium separation with a low cobalt loss. Over several recycles, the recovery of lithium could reach the maximum with the lithium ion concentration of 27.3 g/L. The recovery efficiencies for cobalt and lithium were 90.02% and 86.04%, respectively. (C) 2012 Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of Basel Convention Coordinating Centre for Asia and the Pacific and National Center of Solid Waste Management, Ministry of Environmental Protection of China.