Tilak Raj Mankhand

Recovery of valuable metals from cathodic active material of spent lithium ion batteries: Leaching and kinetic aspects

This work is focussed on the processing of cathodic active material of spent lithium ion batteries (LIBs) to ensure resource recovery and minimize environmental degradation. The sulfuric acid leaching of metals was carried out for the recovery of all the valuable metals including nickel and manganese along with the frequently targeted metals like lithium and cobalt. The process parameters such as acid concentration, pulp density, time and temperature for the leaching of metals from the cathode powder containing 35.8% Co, 6.5% Li, 11.6% Mn and 10.06% Ni, were optimized. Results show the optimized leach recovery of 93.4% Li, 66.2% Co, 96.3% Ni and 50.2% Mn when the material was leached in 1M H2SO4 at 368 K and 50 g/L pulp density for 240 min. The need of a reductant for improved recovery of cobalt and manganese has been explained by the thermodynamic analysis (Eh-pH diagram) for these metals. Leaching of the valuable metals was found to follow the logarithmic rate law controlled by surface layer diffusion of the lixiviant reacting with the particles. The mode of leaching of the metals from the spent LIBs was further examined by chemical analysis of the samples at various stage of processing which was further corroborated by characterizing the untreated sample and the leach residues by XRD phase identification and the SEM-EDS studies.

Process optimization and kinetics for leaching of rare earth metals from the spent Ni-metal hydride batteries.

Nickel-metal hydride batteries (Ni-MH) contain not only the base metals, but valuable rare earth metals (REMs) viz. La, Sm, Nd, Pr and Ce as well. In view of the importance of resource recycling and assured supply of the contained metals in such wastes, the present study has focussed on the leaching of the rare earth metals from the spent Ni-MH batteries. The conditions for the leaching of REMs from the spent batteries were optimized as: 2M H2SO4, 348K temperature and 120min of time at a pulp density (PD) of 100g/L. Under this condition, the leaching of 98.1% Nd, 98.4% Sm, 95.5% Pr and 89.4% Ce was achieved. Besides the rare earth metals, more than 90% of base metals (Ni, Co, Mn and Zn) were also leached out in this condition. Kinetic data for the dissolution of all the rare earth metals showed the best fit to the chemical control shrinking core model. The leaching of metals followed the mechanism involving the chemical reaction proceeding on the surface of particles by the lixiviant, which was corroborated by the XRD phase analysis and SEM-EDS studies. The activation energy of 7.6, 6.3, 11.3 and 13.5kJ/mol was acquired for the leaching of neodymium, samarium, praseodymium and cerium, respectively in the temperature range 305-348K. From the leach liquor, the mixed rare earth metals were precipitated at pH∼1.8 and the precipitated REMs was analyzed by XRD and SEM studies to determine the phases and the morphological features.