A sustainable solvothermal process extracting critical elements from Li-ion batteries
A solvothermal process was developed for extracting cobalt, nickel, lithium and manganese from LiCoO2 (LCO) or Ni(1–x–y) MnxCoyO2 (NMC) cathode active materials, without using any acid or base, neither high temperature. The solvent used, ethylene glycol, is a mild reducing agent and does not pose an...
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Académie des sciences
2024-04-01
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| Series: | Comptes Rendus. Chimie |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://comptes-rendus.academie-sciences.fr/chimie/articles/10.5802/crchim.306/ |
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| Summary: | A solvothermal process was developed for extracting cobalt, nickel, lithium and manganese from LiCoO2 (LCO) or Ni(1–x–y) MnxCoyO2 (NMC) cathode active materials, without using any acid or base, neither high temperature. The solvent used, ethylene glycol, is a mild reducing agent and does not pose any unacceptable environmental risk. Structural characterization of the recovered products showed that cobalt and nickel are together in a metallic state (Co or Ni–Co alloy), lithium and manganese are in the form of carbonates easily separable due to their different solubilities in water. Magnetic separation was used to isolate Ni–Co alloy from MnCO3. The purities of the recovered products depend on the quantities of LCO powder processed and fall within the range of 90.5–97% for lithium carbonate and 96.7–99.9% for cobalt. In the case of NMC, the purities of Li2CO3, MnCO3 and NixCo(1–x) are respectively 94.4%, 95.2% and 91%. The process demonstrated its effectiveness when treating NMC-type black mass extracted from a mobile phone battery. |
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| ISSN: | 1878-1543 |