Apparatus and process for thermal treatment of raw material containing lithium compounds and phosphorus compounds, method of recovering lithium and/or phosphorus from residue material of lithium-ion batteries

A process for thermal treatment of a raw material containing lithium compounds and phosphorus compounds, the process comprising the steps of:

• providing the raw material,
• optionally pretreating the raw material,
• optionally supplying additives to the raw material,
• feeding the raw material to an inductively heated packed bed reactor comprising a reactor body at least partially made of refractory material, the reactor body being surrounded by at least one induction coil, the reactor body being at least partially filled with a susceptor material, the inductively heated packed bed reactor being configured for transferring at least one part of the raw material including lithium compounds and phosphorus compounds into a gaseous phase and configured for forming a molten phase from another part of the raw material, the inductively heated packed bed reactor comprising one or more gas outlets and a molten phase outlet;
• thermally treating the raw material in the inductively heated packed bed reactor, such that the at least one part of the raw material including lithium compounds and phosphorus compounds is transferred into the gaseous phase and the another part of the raw material forms the molten phase,
• discharging at least part of the gaseous phase comprising at least part of the transferred part of the raw material including lithium species and phosphorus species in the gaseous phase from the reactor via the one or more gas outlets,
• discharging the molten phase from the reactor via the molten phase outlet,
• cooling the discharged gaseous phase in a condenser thereby depositing lithium species, and
• separating the deposited lithium species from an exhaust gas substantially free from lithium species;
• wherein the susceptor material is arranged within the reactor body such that the particle size of the susceptor material varies in a radial direction, wherein the particle size of the susceptor material at the center of the reactor body is larger than the particle size of the susceptor material at the periphery of the reactor body.