A Facile Approach for Synthesizing Tetrabasic Lead Sulfate Derived from Recycled Lead-Acid Battery Paste and Its Electrochemical Performance

Abstract

The tetrabasic lead sulfate (4BS) additive, a high-value product, is synthesized directly from the starting materials of the spent lead paste in recycled lead-acid battery via a hydrometallurgical route. The synthesized 4BS products with two different particle size distributions are referred to as the Sintered 4BS and Ball-milled 4BS, with the mean diameter of 10, and 1 μm, respectively. The Ball-milled 4BS additive with smaller particle size can promote a denser and more integrated skeleton microstructure in the positive active materials (PAMs) after the formation process, compared with the Sintered 4BS additives. And C/20 and 1C initial discharge capacities of testing batteries with the Ball-milled 4BS additives are better than those with the Sintered 4BS additives. Moreover, both synthesized 4BS additives can improve the capacity retention characteristics of the testing batteries during charge/discharge cycles. The Ball-milled 4BS additive at a dosage of 0.5–1 wt% in PAMs is proposed. The feasibility of recovery of valuable 4BS product directly from the spent lead paste is proved, which paves a green recycling route for hazardous wastes comprising lead.

A Facile and Environmentally Friendly Approach for Lead Recovery from Lead Sulfate Residue via Mechanochemical Reduction: Phase Transformation and Reaction Mechanism

“…In general, LSR is treated with the reductant (coal and coke) in the furnace to obtain metallic lead or lead alloy. However, the reaction temperature is over 1000 °C, leading to high energy consumption . Zhang et al employed C-CaO-PbSO 4 and C-Fe-PbSO 4 systems to reduce lead sulfate, and the total recovery rate of lead was beyond 99% with the temperature range of 1000–1300 °C.…”

“…However, the reaction temperature is over 1000 °C, leading to high energy consumption. 13 Zhang et al employed C-CaO-PbSO 4 and C-Fe-PbSO 4 systems to reduce lead sulfate, 14 and the total recovery rate of lead was beyond 99% with the temperature range of 1000−1300 °C. Li et al investigated the PbSO 4 -Fe 3 O 4 -Na 2 CO 3 -C system to recycle lead from spent lead-acid batteries, 15 the recovery efficiency was 96.2% and the purity of the obtained crude lead was 98.6% at over 800 °C.…”

Reconstruction of Lead Acid Battery Negative Electrodes after Hard Sulfation Using Controlled Chelation Chemistry

“…5,25 Typically, the goal of recycling is to separate the battery components and reconstitute them for further applications. 9,26,27 On the other hand, significantly less effort has been directed toward developing in situ refurbishing or recycling technologies, 22,28 though it eliminates the disassembly/reassembly process and could minimize waste.…”