Recovery of Cobalt from Used Lithium-Ion Batteries and its Leaching Kinetics

Alfred Obaje¹ , Douglas Onyancha² , Samuel Mirie³

1. Department of Chemistry, Dedan Kimathi University of Technology, Private Bag - 10143, Dedan Kimathi, Nyeri Kenya.
2. Department of Chemistry, Dedan Kimathi University of Technology, Private Bag - 10143, Dedan Kimathi, Nyeri Kenya.
3. Department of Chemistry, Dedan Kimathi University of Technology, Private Bag - 10143, Dedan Kimathi, Nyeri Kenya.

Section:Research Paper, Product Type: Journal-Paper
Vol.10 , Issue.3 , pp.1-12, Jun-2023

Online published on Jun 30, 2023

Copyright © Alfred Obaje, Douglas Onyancha, Samuel Mirie . This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
 

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Abstract :
Lithium-ion batteries are frequently employed as rechargeable batteries, driving most of electronics and electric cars, significantly increased the quantity of utilized LIBs. Hence, ecosystems may be threatened by these used LIBs, due to the presence of heavy metals and poisonous electrolytes. Hence, for sound protection and financial considerations, it is highly essential to develop an efficient method to recycle used LIBs with an aim of preventing hazardous compounds entering ecosystem and endangering people’s health and recover valuable metal. The study concentrated on cobalt recovery using hydrometallurgical and thermal treatment techniques that enhanced a high rate of recovery, low energy use, and less waste production. Used LIBs of mobile phones, were collected from phone repairing shops in Nyeri town, Kenya. Hydrometallurgical process which involves acid leaching using mineral acids and organic acids was applied by using H2O2 as a reductant. Leaching process was optimized by varying parameters (type of acid, acid concentration, reductant dosage, time, and temperature). Cobalt ion concentration level in liquor, was analysed via ICP - OES, and finally cobalt was extracted from the leachate liquor via precipitation. XRF analysis showed that cathode active material has highest composition of 61.72 % cobalt and other valuable metals like 12.11 % Ni and 9.64 % Mn, hence need of recycling the cathode active material to recover the valuable metals and minimize chances of heavy metals release into the environment. Optimum conditions for leaching cobalt from cathode material were as follows: 80 ?, 120 minutes, 1.5 % v/v of H2O2, for both 3M H2SO4 and 2M C6H8O7. The cobalt leaching followed chemical reaction model, with best satisfactory regression coefficient fitting values above 0.98 and activation energy as 21.84 and 7.89 kJ/mol, and percentage recovery of 82.75 % and 67.47 % while using 3M H2SO4 and 2M C6H8O7 respectively.

Key-Words / Index Term :
Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), Lithium cobalt oxide (LiCoO2), Polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF), Leaching Kinetics

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