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US 12,334,522 B2Granted
Method, apparatus, and system for lithium ion battery recycling
AssigneeBlue Whale Materials LLC
InventorMinjae Oh
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
The present application provides a system and method for discharging and processing of lithium ion batteries to extract one or more metals. The extracted metals are in a powder form that can be reused at second stage processing facilities. The extracted metal powder can include lithium and at least one of cobalt, nickel, manganese, and carbon.
Claims8
A battery processing method comprising:
- hole punching electric vehicle (EV) batteries, wherein the hole punching affects a speed of electrolyte evaporation in the EV batteries and a processing time of the battery processing method;
- depositing the hole-punched EV batteries in water for fire or fume mitigation;
- discharging the hole-punched EV batteries by heat in a discharging kiln;
- cooling the discharged and hole-punched EV batteries;
- disassembling the cooled, discharged, and hole-punched EV batteries to separate into modules or cells;
- shredding the modules or cells into mixed metal pieces;
- magnetically separating iron (Fe) from the mixed metal pieces;
- and
- pulverizing the mixed metal pieces into a mixed metal powder.
6 more elements
A battery processing method comprising:
- sorting a mixed chemistry of batteries comprising lithium ion (Li-ion) batteries and one or more of alkaline, nickel metal hydride (Ni-MH) and nickel cadmium (Ni—Cd) batteries, such that the Li-ion batteries are separated from the one or more of alkaline, Ni-MH and Ni—Cd batteries;
- removing packaging from the Li-ion batteries to expose Li-ion cells of the Li-ion batteries;
- before discharging, puncturing the Li-ion cells, wherein the puncturing affects a speed of electrolyte evaporation of the Li-ion a processing time of the battery processing method, and wherein the puncturing of the Li-ion cells comprises hole punching the Li-ion cells;
- depositing the hole punched Li-ion cells in water for fire or fume mitigation;
- discharging the hole punched Li-ion cells by heat in a discharging kiln;
- cooling the discharged and hole-punched Li-ion cells;
- shredding the cooled, discharged, and hole-punched Li-ion cells into pieces;
- removing iron (Fe) from the shredded pieces;
- and
- pulverizing the remaining shredded pieces into a mixed powder including Li and at least one of selected from the group consisting of cobalt (Co), nickel (Ni), manganese (Mn) and carbon (C).
7 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.