2016-Sustainable Industrial Processing Summit
SIPS 2016 Volume 10: Battery, Recycling, Environmental, Mining
| Editors: | Kongoli F, Kumar V, Aifantis K, Pagnanelli F |
| Publisher: | Flogen Star OUTREACH |
| Publication Year: | 2016 |
| Pages: | 220 pages |
| ISBN: | 978-1-987820-54-6 |
| ISSN: | 2291-1227 (Metals and Materials Processing in a Clean Environment Series) |
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Turning wastes into nanoproducts: a hydrometallurgical approach for recycling end of life Lithium Ion Batteries
Thomas Abo Atia1; Emanuela Moscardini2; Luigi Toro1; Francesca Pagnanelli3;1SAPIENZA UNIVERSITY, Rome, Italy; 2UNIVERSITA , Roma, Italy; 3SAPIENZA UNIVERSITY OF ROME, Rome, Italy;
Type of Paper: Regular
Id Paper: 478
Topic: 7
Abstract:
End of life batteries are potential source of secondary raw materials containing metals such as cobalt, manganese, nickel, lithium and rare earths. National regulations promote the development of innovative processes for the exploitation of such wastes. Pyrometallurgical processes currently used for the treatment of some kinds of batteries and/or battery fractions, cannot guarantee the complete recovery of metals and present significant drawbacks due to high investment costs, energy consumption and pollutant emission. Hydrometallurgical processes of battery fractions obtained by physical pretreatments offer a valid alternative to pyrometallurgy. In fact, these processes present great advantages in terms of investment, environmental impact and flexibility. This last point is of great relevance considering both the intrinsic heterogeneity of the battery waste category and the continuous changes in battery electrodic components. In this work experimental results were reported concerning the process development for lithium ion battery exploitation using real waste fractions emerging from pilot scale physical pretreatment. Automated mechanical pretreatment is a necessary step in battery exploitation allowing the separation of metal-containing electrodic materials from the other constituents of batteries. The purification section of the leach liquors obtained from electrodic materials was optimized taking into consideration the heterogeneity of real waste fractions obtained by automated physical pretreatment. Precipitation and solvent extraction operations were optimized giving as main products Co3O4 and Li2CO3. Due to the complexity of the process scheme, the limited amounts of collected wastes can compromise the economic feasibility of the recycling process. As a consequence all by-products have to be minimized and/or valorised for instance for the production of high value nanoproducts. In this view magnetic nanoferrites were synthetized using iron-containing sludge emerging from precipitation section and manganese-bearing solution emerging from solvent extraction. The same nanoparticles were used for refining the wastewaters emerging from lithium ion battery recycling process.