Acid leaching and kinetics study of cobalt recovery from spent lithium-ion batteries with nitric acid

The imbalance between raw materials of high economic importance and their supply has increased the search for new approaches to obtain valuable elements from mining tailings. In this study, the extraction of copper, zinc, and lead from sulfidic tailing in sulfate–chloride media was investigated. A 33 Box–Behnken design was applied to evaluate three variables over a 4-h testing period: sulfuric acid concentration (0.01–1.0 mol/L H2SO4), sodium chloride (10–60 g/L NaCl), and temperature (20–70 °C). The design showed two optimum working regions: a combination of a high NaCl level, low H2SO4 level, and medium temperature level for lead leaching, while for copper and zinc, a combination of a medium–high H2SO4 level and a high temperature level. The concentration of NaCl had only a slight impact on their leaching. Based on these results, two-stage leaching was performed. The first stage was carried out under an experimental condition that favored the leaching of lead (60 g/L NaCl, 0.01 mol/L H2SO4, 45 °C, 1 h, 10:1 liquid-to-solid ratio), whereas the second stage maximized the leaching of copper and zinc (60 g/L NaCl, 0.5 mol/L H2SO4, 70 °C, 24 h, 10:1 liquid-to-solid ratio). The global leaching rate was 66.8 ± 3.0% copper, 84.1 ± 5.2% zinc, and 93.9 ± 3.2% lead. The iron and arsenic content were also leached by about 20 and 50% at the end of the second stage. The study demonstrated that the use of sulfate–chloride media in a two-stage leaching considerably improved the extraction of the desired metals and was, therefore, suitable for their recovery. Graphical Abstract

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“…( 5). The increase in temperature increases the reaction speed due to the increase in the kinetic constant of the reaction [38,39].…”

Section: Leaching Testsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Leaching of Cu, Zn, and Pb from Sulfidic Tailings Under the Use of Sulfuric Acid and Chloride Solutions

Schueler

Aguiar

Vera

et al. 2021

J. Sustain. Metall.

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“…The cathode usually contains an oxide of lithium along with another transition metal. Common cathode materials include lithium cobalt oxide (LiCoO 2 ), ,,− lithium nickel cobalt oxide (LiNi x Co 1‑ x O 2 ), , lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide (LiNi 0.33 Mn 0.33 Co 0.33 O 2 )(NMC), − and lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO 4 ). ,, To separate metals from the cathode, strong inorganic acids like sulfuric acid, , hydrochloric acid, and nitric acid , along with external reducing agents like H 2 O 2 are used, but they have adverse environmental impacts because of emission of harmful pollutants like SO x , Cl 2 , and NO x . Hence, replacing an inorganic acid with an organic acid minimizes this environmental impact, making the recycling process more sustainable.…”

Section: Application Of Oxalatesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Metal Recovery Using Oxalate Chemistry: A Technical Review

Verma

Kore

Corbin

et al. 2019

Ind. Eng. Chem. Res.

120

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Energy-efficient metal recovery and separation processes from a mixture of valuable metals are vital to the metallurgy and recycling industries. Oxalate has been identified as a sustainable reagent that can provide both the desired selectivity and efficient leaching capabilities for a variety of mixed metals under mild reaction conditions. The oxalate process has a great potential to replace many of the existing metal recovery processes that use inorganic acids such as sulfuric, hydrochloric, and nitric acids. In this Review, the use of oxalate chemistry in four major metal recovery applications is discussed, namely, spent lithium-ion batteries, spent catalysts, valuable ores, and contaminated and unwanted waste streams. Recycling of critical and precious metals from spent lithium-ion batteries and catalysts has significant economic opportunities. For efficient metals recovery, reaction conditions (e.g., temperature, pH, time, and concentration), metal−oxalate complex formation, oxidation and reduction, and metal precipitation must all be well-understood. This Review provides an overview from articles and patents for a variety of metal recovery processes along with insights into future process development.

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“…There are only a few published works devoted to the theoretical aspects of HNO 3 leaching of sulfide gold-containing concentrates [38], which demonstrates the need for additional investigation using other types of concentrates with different mineralogical compositions. At the same time, there is a sufficient amount of work showing that various types of leaching reactions of raw materials with HNO 3 can be described quite accurately using the shrinking core model [39][40][41][42][43], which makes it possible to obtain more data on the limiting stages of the reactions.…”

Section: Of 15mentioning

confidence: 99%

Leaching Kinetics of Sulfides from Refractory Gold Concentrates by Nitric Acid

Rogozhnikov

Shoppert

Dizer

et al. 2019

Metals

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The processing of refractory gold-containing concentrates by hydrometallurgical methods is becoming increasingly important due to the depletion of rich and easily extracted mineral resources, as well as due to the need to reduce harmful emissions from metallurgy, especially given the high content of arsenic in the ores. This paper describes the investigation of the kinetics of HNO3 leaching of sulfide gold-containing concentrates of the Yenisei ridge (Yakutia, Russia). The effect of temperature (70–85 °C), the initial concentration of HNO3 (10–40%) and the content of sulfur in the concentrate (8.22–22.44%) on the iron recovery into the solution was studied. It has been shown that increasing the content of S in the concentrate from 8.22 to 22.44% leads to an average of 45% increase in the iron recovery across the entire range temperatures and concentrations of HNO3 per one hour of leaching. The leaching kinetics of the studied types of concentrates correlates well with the new shrinking core model, which indicates that the reaction is regulated by interfacial diffusion and diffusion through the product layer. Elemental S is found on the surface of the solid leach residue, as confirmed by XRD and SEM/EDS analysis. The apparent activation energy is 60.276 kJ/mol. The semi-empirical expression describing the reaction rate under the studied conditions can be written as follows: 1/3ln(1 − X) + [(1 − X)−1/3 − 1] = 87.811(HNO3)0.837(S)2.948e−60276/RT·t.

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Acid leaching and kinetics study of cobalt recovery from spent lithium-ion batteries with nitric acid

Cited by 27 publications

References 12 publications

Leaching of Cu, Zn, and Pb from Sulfidic Tailings Under the Use of Sulfuric Acid and Chloride Solutions

Leaching of Cu, Zn, and Pb from Sulfidic Tailings Under the Use of Sulfuric Acid and Chloride Solutions

Metal Recovery Using Oxalate Chemistry: A Technical Review

Leaching Kinetics of Sulfides from Refractory Gold Concentrates by Nitric Acid

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