Hydrometallurgical recycling is a process that can be used to recycle lithium-ion batteries. The process involves the use of aqueous solutions to extract valuable metals such as lithium, cobalt, nickel, and manganese from used batteries.
The first step in the hydrometallurgical recycling process is to crush the used batteries and remove any combustible materials. The resulting material is then ground into a fine powder and leached with an aqueous solution. This solution contains a complexing agent, which binds to the metals in the battery powder and dissolves them into the solution.
The next step is to separate the metals from the solution. This can be done using a variety of techniques, such as solvent extraction, ion exchange etc. The resulting metals are then dried and refined to produce high-purity metals that can be used to produce new batteries.
The advantages of hydrometallurgical recycling is that it can recover a high percentage of metals from the used batteries, typically over 90%. It also produces high-purity metals, which can be used to produce new batteries with similar performance to those made from virgin metals.
Hydrometallurgical recycling process is a relatively inexpensive process and can be easily scaled up to handle large quantities of used batteries. Furthermore, it does not produce any hazardous waste and also reduces the amount of CO2 emissions compared to mining and smelting.
It's worth noting that there are other recycling processes available as well and each has its own advantages and disadvantages, some are more suitable for certain type of batteries, some for certain type of materials and so on. So, it's important to consider the specific conditions and requirements of each case when choosing a recycling process.