EV Battery Material Recovery

Recycling lithium-ion battery cathode materials in a way that allows extracting valuable elements like cobalt, nickel, manganese, and lithium in a form that can be used to make new battery cathodes. The recycling process involves leaching the spent battery materials to extract the desirable elements, precipitating them to form a precursor cathode material, and then adjusting the composition to achieve the desired molar ratios of elements for the new cathode chemistry. The precursor is then calcined and sintered to form the final recycled cathode material. The process allows efficient recovery and reuse of the valuable cathode elements from mixed chemistry batteries, reducing waste and environmental impact.

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Automated method and system for recycling metal from discarded lithium-ion battery modules used in electric vehicles and electronics. The method involves disassembling the module housing, cutting cell connections, dissolving adhesive, discharging cells, and melting/cooling to recover the metal contents. It aims to safely, quickly, and efficiently extract valuable metals from end-of-life battery packs compared to manual disassembly methods. The automated stationized process steps include disassembling the module housing, cutting cell connections, dissolving adhesive, discharging cells, and melting/cooling to recover the metal contents. The automated system has separate stations for disassembly, solvent bath, discharging, and melting/cooling.

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Recycling lithium from spent lithium-ion batteries using a partial oxygen roasting process that consumes the existing carbon from the anode material instead of adding additional carbon sources. This allows recovering lithium as lithium carbonate without interfering with the thermal reduction of the cathode material. The partial oxygen roasting activates the anode graphite and prevents complete cathode metal reduction, yielding soluble lower oxidation states. This increases lithium recovery compared to inert or reducing environments.

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A method to recover valuable metals like copper, cobalt, nickel, iron, and cadmium from lithium-ion battery waste using sulfide precipitation. The method involves introducing a sulfide reductant to the leach solution containing the metals to precipitate out metal sulfides. The precipitated sulfides are then separated from the remaining solution to remove the targeted metals. The process allows selective removal of specific metals from the leach stream while avoiding precipitation of other desirable metals like lithium.

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A highly efficient method for recycling transition metals like cobalt, nickel, and manganese from lithium-ion battery cathodes without using aggressive chemicals or high temperatures. The method involves mechanochemically reducing the transition metals in the cathode material using a mill, followed by leaching in water to dissolve the reduced metals. This improves recycling efficiency compared to leaching pristine cathode materials due to faster kinetics of the reduced metals. The reduced and dissolved metals can then be recovered by conventional methods.

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Waste lithium battery recycling system with multiple stages to efficiently and safely process and recover valuable materials from used lithium batteries. The stages involve pretreatment, puncturing, primary crushing, electrolyte separation, secondary crushing, positive/negative electrode decomposition, drying, and incineration. This comprehensive recycling process allows extraction of cathode materials like nickel, cobalt, and manganese, as well as anode materials like graphite, from the batteries. It also recovers the lithium and other elements from the electrolyte and separates out the remaining non-metallic components for disposal.

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A method for recovering highly pure graphite from spent lithium-ion batteries in an environmentally friendly, commercially feasible, and economically attractive way. The method involves leaching the black mass from spent batteries, mixing the leach residue with solvent and water, heating it, cooling it, agitating with a reagent, filtering, washing, and drying to obtain 99.9% pure graphite.

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Recycling method for lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries that reduces loss of valuable materials and better handles impurity removal compared to conventional methods. The recycling steps are: 1) Alkaline leaching with high pH to extract valuable materials. 2) Acid leaching to remove impurities like fluorine and copper. 3) Ion exchange to isolate and recover fluorine and copper. 4) Iron precipitation to separate iron. 5) Final pH adjustment to recover lithium.

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Recycling lithium from high nickel content lithium-ion batteries like NMC 811 to extract lithium selectively from the black mass of recycled batteries. The process involves leaching lithium from the black mass using a dilute sulfuric acid solution. The lithium is selectively extracted due to the high molar ratio of nickel in the cathode materials. The leaching is done at 60-100°C for 1-6 hours. The lithium sulfate solution is then concentrated, filtered, and crystallized to recover the lithium. The approach avoids over-leaching of nickel and cobalt impurities.

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A method for separating and recycling used batteries to recover high-value graphite while removing impurities like copper and aluminum. The method involves steps like air separation, leaching, plasma modification, heavy medium cyclone separation, and heavy medium sorting. The air separation removes the battery membrane. Leaching extracts metals like nickel, cobalt, and manganese. Plasma modification changes the surface properties of graphite and carbon to make them more hydrophilic. Heavy medium cyclone separation separates graphite and carbon based on density differences. Heavy medium sorting further purifies the graphite. This allows recycling of high-purity graphite for reuse in batteries without impurities like copper that degrade performance.

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Recycling and regeneration method for lithium-ion battery cathode materials using solid-state heat treatment followed by water leaching. The process involves heating the waste battery cathode material with an iron-containing additive to promote valence modification and crystal structure collapse. This is followed by water immersion to fully leach the cathode elements without leaching collectors. The leaching residue contains the negative active material. The water leachate can be treated to separate valuable metals. The process avoids acid leaching and reduces waste generation.

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Waste battery recycling method using directional recycling (DRT) to safely and efficiently process end-of-life batteries. The method involves discharging, crushing, sorting, roasting, leaching, carbonizing, and screening the crushed battery components to recover valuable materials like aluminum, copper, nickel, lithium, and cobalt. It enables recycling of the battery materials in a closed-loop process that reduces energy consumption, eliminates hazardous gas emissions, and conserves resources compared to traditional battery recycling methods.

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Method for recovering valuable metals like nickel, cobalt, and manganese from waste batteries in a more efficient and cost-effective way compared to conventional methods. The method involves a pretreatment step to separate the battery components before leaching. The pretreatment involves heating the battery to release binders and separate out materials like copper from the negative electrode and graphite from the positive electrode. This reduces the amount of acid needed for leaching and improves efficiency. The separated components are then leached separately to recover the valuable metals.

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Recycling lithium-ion batteries in a way that allows efficient recovery of lithium, cobalt, nickel, manganese, and aluminum. The process involves separating lithium first from the other elements, then treating the remaining elements separately. This involves reducing the composition to separate lithium, followed by leaching to extract the other elements. The key step is separating lithium before treating the other elements, allowing higher lithium recovery.

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Recycling lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) to extract and recover valuable materials like lithium, cobalt, nickel, and manganese in a more efficient and sustainable way. The method involves separating lithium from the other metals at the beginning of the recycling process. This is done by treating the battery waste with a reducing agent to solubilize lithium while leaving the other metals as a solid. The lithium-containing solution is then separated from the solid residue. This allows lithium to be recovered without carrying it through the entire recycling process. The separated metals can then be further processed and purified.

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Recycling metals from waste lithium-ion battery cathodes using electrochemical leaching. The process involves disassembling the battery, placing the cathode in an electrolyte, and applying a negative voltage to the cathode to extract the valuable metals into the electrolyte. This provides a simpler, cleaner, and more efficient method for recycling metals from lithium-ion battery cathodes compared to complex hydrometallurgical or pyrometallurgical processes.

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Recycling spent lithium-ion batteries to extract and reuse the cathode material for new batteries. The recycling involves leaching the cathode, purifying the solution, and then precipitating the cathode precursor. Adding a small amount of fluorine during leaching improves the electrochemical performance of the recycled cathode. The fluorine doping changes the oxidation states of nickel and cobalt in the cathode surface, which enhances capacity, rate, and cycle life. The optimal fluorine level is around 0.2-1 atom% relative to the transition metals.

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Method for recycling lithium-ion battery negative electrode materials in an efficient and environmentally friendly way. The process involves pyrolysis to remove the binder, absorption of volatile lithium compounds with alkali solution, catalytic oxidation to decompose organic waste gas, separation of copper foil, impurity removal and lithium extraction using sulfuric acid and oxidant, washing, drying, and roasting to obtain high-purity recycled graphite suitable for battery applications.

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Recycling waste lithium battery cathode materials to extract valuable metals like lithium, nickel, cobalt, and erbium. The recycling process involves reducing high-valence metal ions on the cathode material surface using a reducing solution, followed by acid leaching. The reduction step converts the metal ions to divalent oxides or elements, which are easier to leach in acid. Ball milling during reduction further increases the reduction rate by shearing the material and reducing particle size.

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A method for recovering metals like cobalt, nickel, and lithium from waste lithium-ion batteries using a single-step smelting process. The method involves separating the battery particles into coarse and fine fractions, reducing the lithium compounds in the fine fraction, thermally treating the reduced fraction in oxygen to prevent ternary alloy formation, smelting the treated fraction with flux, and casting to obtain the cobalt-nickel alloy. The lithium carbonate is crystallized and the slag separated. This allows selective extraction of valuable metals like cobalt-nickel alloy while minimizing losses. The induction smelting step enables efficient high-purity recovery in a single step.

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