Thermal Conditioning of Metals and EoL-Products for Improved Recycling Efficiency

A special issue of Metals (ISSN 2075-4701). This special issue belongs to the section "Extractive Metallurgy".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (29 February 2024) | Viewed by 10501

Special Issue Editors

Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Industrial Materials Recycling, Chalmers University of Technology, Kemivägen 4, 412 96 Göteborg, Sweden
Interests: batteries; recycling; solvent extraction; hydrometallurgy; industrial waste
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Today’s recycling processes for metals often meet challenges, especially with regard to the complex composition of modern end-of-life products, the low concentration of valuable components/metals, and the presence of hazardous substances. Organics are widely used on a daily basis for goods manufacturing in parts such as casings, electrolytes, separators, structural materials or sealings, limiting the feed speed into smelting operations or hindering the interaction of chemicals due to the hydrophobic character of these materials. This also accounts for production scrap on the way toward finished goods, such as coated metal sheets/foils or semi-finished composites. The consequences are reduced efficiencies in the production lines and new components in waste streams. Processes surviving in the circular economy, however, must ensure high recovery rates, robustness, and safety as well as flexibility, process simplification of the subsequent steps, and, finally, waste reduction. Alternatives such as landfill, municipal waste incineration or direct-to-metallurgy routes often do not meet these requirements, and heavy and valuable metal losses occur. A solution is the integration of prior thermal pre-treatment of the materials, which cover the areas of pyrolysis, thermolysis, and controlled dedicated incineration. The scientific basis of this is rather poor, and such implementation has not happened so far on a broad level, but fortunately, an increasing amount of research centers in the world have it on their agenda. Moreover, many processing industries plan to integrate those techniques for future activities as a necessary tool for efficient recycling. This Special Issue addresses the newest research in the field of thermal pre-treatment of circular materials. Examples are end of life lithium-ion batteries (LIB), used beverage cans (UBC), and waste of electric and electronic equipment such as printed circuit boards (PCBs), mobile phones or shredder light fractions (SLF) from different mechanical pre-treatment operations.

With this call for papers, we would like to encourage all international scientists in this interesting field of research to contribute to this Special Issue and create a worldwide recognized book.

Prof. Dr. Bernd Friedrich
Dr. Martina Petranikova
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • metal recycling
  • circular economy
  • organic waste
  • thermal treatment
  • pyrolysis

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

14 pages, 4130 KiB  
Article
Selective Extraction of Lithium from Spent Lithium-Ion Manganese Oxide Battery System through Sulfating Roasting and Water-Leaching
by Jeraldiny Becker, Sebastian Will and Bernd Friedrich
Metals 2023, 13(9), 1612; https://doi.org/10.3390/met13091612 - 18 Sep 2023
Viewed by 1105
Abstract
Sulfating roasting tests were conducted with different agents to investigate lithium recovery from spent lithium-ion manganese oxide (LMO) batteries. In this study, CaSO4 and CaCO3 were used as reactants, and the optimal temperature, residence time, and molar fraction of CaSO4 [...] Read more.
Sulfating roasting tests were conducted with different agents to investigate lithium recovery from spent lithium-ion manganese oxide (LMO) batteries. In this study, CaSO4 and CaCO3 were used as reactants, and the optimal temperature, residence time, and molar fraction of CaSO4 in a static reactor were determined. In the experiments, the temperature ranged between 620 and 720 °C, and the holding time was between 10 and 40 min. In addition, the molar fraction of CaSO4 varied between 0 and 100%, with the rest being CaCO3. The water leaching was fixed at an S/L ratio of 1/20 and heated to 60 °C for 1 h. The maximum Li yield achieved was 93.4% at 720 °C, 25 min, and a 0.5 molar fraction of CaSO4, and virtually no Mn was present in the solution. Therefore, high selectivity for Mn—which is the major compound in the LMO black mass—was observed. Regarding statistical evaluation, temperature was the most influential parameter and, to a lesser extent, the molar fraction of CaSO4. The product displayed a sintering effect, suggesting that the pyrolyzed black mass and reactive underwent a solid-solid reaction in the selected temperature range. Full article
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15 pages, 12124 KiB  
Article
Influence of Flow-Gas Composition on Reaction Products of Thermally Treated NMC Battery Black Mass
by Christin Stallmeister and Bernd Friedrich
Metals 2023, 13(5), 923; https://doi.org/10.3390/met13050923 - 10 May 2023
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1696
Abstract
The recycling of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) is becoming increasingly important regarding the expansion of electromobility and aspects of raw material supply. Pre-treatment and liberation are crucial for a sufficient recovery of all relevant materials from LIBs. Organic removal and phase transformations by thermal [...] Read more.
The recycling of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) is becoming increasingly important regarding the expansion of electromobility and aspects of raw material supply. Pre-treatment and liberation are crucial for a sufficient recovery of all relevant materials from LIBs. Organic removal and phase transformations by thermal pre-treatment are beneficial in many respects. This study deals with the influence of flow-gas composition on reaction products and water-based lithium recovery after thermal treatment. Therefore, a spent NMC black mass was thermally treated at 610 °C in a moved bed batch reactor under an N2 atmosphere and mixtures of N2 with 2.5% and 5% O2. Since the phase transformation of the lithium content to Li2CO3 is targeted for water leaching, a treatment under a CO2 atmosphere was studied as well. The resulting off-gas was analyzed by FTIR, and the black mass was characterized by XRD. Afterward, water washing of the black mass was carried out for selective lithium recovery. The gained lithium product was analyzed for the purity and phases present. The addition of O2 resulted in reduced reduction reactions of lithium metal oxides and lower Li-yields in the water leaching compared to the other two atmospheres. In the case of CO2, the formation of Li2CO3 is favored compared to LiF, but the Li-yield of 56% is comparable to N2 treatment. Full article
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17 pages, 5257 KiB  
Article
Recovery of Graphite and Cathode Active Materials from Spent Lithium-Ion Batteries by Applying Two Pretreatment Methods and Flotation Combined with a Rapid Analysis Technique
by Hao Qiu, Christoph Peschel, Martin Winter, Sascha Nowak, Johanna Köthe and Daniel Goldmann
Metals 2022, 12(4), 677; https://doi.org/10.3390/met12040677 - 15 Apr 2022
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 3497
Abstract
This work investigates the comprehensive recycling of graphite and cathode active materials (LiNi0.6Mn0.2Co0.2O2, abbreviated as NMC) from spent lithium-ion batteries via pretreatment and flotation. Specific analytical methods (SPME-GC-MS and Py-GC-MS) were utilized to identify and [...] Read more.
This work investigates the comprehensive recycling of graphite and cathode active materials (LiNi0.6Mn0.2Co0.2O2, abbreviated as NMC) from spent lithium-ion batteries via pretreatment and flotation. Specific analytical methods (SPME-GC-MS and Py-GC-MS) were utilized to identify and trace the relevant influencing factors. Two different pretreatment methods, which are Fenton oxidation and roasting, were investigated with respect to their influence on the flotation effectiveness. As a result, for NMC cathode active materials, a recovery of 90% and a maximum grade of 83% were obtained by the optimized roasting and flotation. Meanwhile, a graphite grade of 77% in the froth product was achieved, with a graphite recovery of 75%. By using SPME-GC-MS and Py-GC-MS analyses, it could be shown that, in an optimized process, an effective destruction/removal of the electrolyte and binder residues can be reached. The applied analytical tools could be integrated into the workflow, which enabled process control in terms of the pretreatment sufficiency and achievable separation in the subsequent flotation. Full article
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16 pages, 2457 KiB  
Article
Comparative Study for Selective Lithium Recovery via Chemical Transformations during Incineration and Dynamic Pyrolysis of EV Li-Ion Batteries
by Srija Balachandran, Kerstin Forsberg, Tom Lemaître, Nathália Vieceli, Gabriele Lombardo and Martina Petranikova
Metals 2021, 11(8), 1240; https://doi.org/10.3390/met11081240 - 04 Aug 2021
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 2864
Abstract
Selective leaching of Li from spent LIBs thermally pretreated by pyrolysis and incineration between 400 and 700 °C for 30, 60, and 90 min followed by water leaching at high temperature and high L/S ratio was examined. During the thermal pretreatment Li2 [...] Read more.
Selective leaching of Li from spent LIBs thermally pretreated by pyrolysis and incineration between 400 and 700 °C for 30, 60, and 90 min followed by water leaching at high temperature and high L/S ratio was examined. During the thermal pretreatment Li2CO3 and LiF were leached. Along with Li salts, AlF3 was also found to be leached with an efficiency not higher than 3.5%. The time of thermal pretreatment did not have a significant effect on Li leaching efficiency. The leaching efficiency of Li was higher with a higher L/S ratio. At a higher leaching temperature (80 °C), the leaching of Li was higher due to an increase in the solubility of present Li salts. The highest Li leaching efficiency of nearly 60% was observed from the sample pyrolyzed at 700 °C for 60 min under the leaching condition L/S ratio of 20:1 mL g−1 at 80 °C for 3 h. Furthermore, the use of an excess of 10% of carbon in a form of graphite during the thermal treatment did not improve the leaching efficiency of Li. Full article
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