Recovery of valuable metals from spent lithium-ion batteries via zinc powder reduction roasting and cysteine leaching

Fanyun Su; Qi Meng; Xiaojian Liu; Wan Yang; Yanxi Chen; Juan Yang; Jingjing Tang; Hui Wang; Yayun Ma; Xiangyang Zhou

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.169541

Recovery of valuable metals from spent lithium-ion batteries via zinc powder reduction roasting and cysteine leaching

Sci Total Environ. 2024 Feb 20:912:169541. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.169541. Epub 2023 Dec 21.

Authors

Fanyun Su¹, Qi Meng¹, Xiaojian Liu¹, Wan Yang¹, Yanxi Chen¹, Juan Yang², Jingjing Tang¹, Hui Wang¹, Yayun Ma³, Xiangyang Zhou⁴

Affiliations

¹ School of Metallurgy and Environment, Engineering Research Center of the Ministry of Education for Advanced Battery Materials, Central South University, Changsha 410083, China.
² School of Metallurgy and Environment, Engineering Research Center of the Ministry of Education for Advanced Battery Materials, Central South University, Changsha 410083, China; Hunan Provincial Key Laboratory of Nonferrous Value-added Metallurgy, Changsha 410083, China.
³ Powder Metallurgy Research Institute, Central South University, Changsha 410083, China. Electronic address: 173501006@csu.edu.cn.
⁴ School of Metallurgy and Environment, Engineering Research Center of the Ministry of Education for Advanced Battery Materials, Central South University, Changsha 410083, China; Hunan Provincial Key Laboratory of Nonferrous Value-added Metallurgy, Changsha 410083, China. Electronic address: hncsyjy308@163.com.

PMID: 38141997
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.169541

Abstract

With the annual increase in lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) disposal, valuable resources are being generated with worrying waste, so it is strategically important to recover the critical metals from them. Individual high temperature or leaching processes do not apparently achieve very satisfactory results. In the present work, the reduction with zinc powder was able to convert the lithium in LiNi_xCo_yMn_zO₂ (NCM) to soluble LiOH, while the reduction and ammonia complexation environment generated by the decomposition of cysteine (Cys) achieved an efficient leaching of transition metals without additional additives. The leaching efficiency of Li can reach more than 92 %, while that of Ni/Co/Mn reaches more than 97 % through the regulation of the parameters of each process. In particular, an in-situ redox mechanism is proposed to explain the efficient leaching of transition metals, which further enriches the theory of spent LIBs recycling and provides a promising idea for various hydrometallurgical extraction systems.

Keywords: Cysteine; In-situ redox; Spent LIBs; Thermal reduction; Zinc powder.