Extracting and recovering metals from cathode active materials from li-ion batteries using sulfide minerals and chemicals
AssigneeMichigan Technological University
InventorsLei Pan, Ruiting Zhan
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An exemplary method for recovering metals from a feed material may include processing feed material, mixing the processed feed material with one or more sulfide minerals or sulfide chemicals to generate a slurry, reacting the slurry and maintaining a target partial oxygen gas pressure, filtering solids from reacted slurry to form a pregnant leach solution, and precipitating one or more metals from the pregnant leach solution. The feed materials may comprise electrode active material recovered from Li-ion batteries.
Claims20
A method for recovering metals from a feed material, the method comprising:
- processing the feed material to generate a reactor feed having a Dv50 particle size of less than 30 μm;
- mixing the reactor feed with one or more sulfide minerals or sulfide chemicals to generate a slurry;
- reacting the slurry in a reactor operating at a temperature of 125° C. to 225° C. and a pressure of 3,000 kPa to 10,000 kPa for 20 minutes to 120 minutes;
- maintaining a partial oxygen gas pressure of 500 kPa to 2,000 kPa in the reactor;
- filtering solids from the reacted slurry to form a pregnant leach solution;
- and
- precipitating one or more metals from the pregnant leach solution, wherein the one or more metals comprise iron, titanium, nickel, copper, cobalt, manganese, magnesium, calcium and lithium in the form of a sulfide, a hydroxide, and/or a carbonate.
A system for recovering metals from a feed material, the system comprising:
- a reactor;
- an ore material source in communication with the reactor;
- a black mass source in communication with the reactor;
- a sulfide material source in communication with the reactor;
- an oxygen source in communication with the reactor;
- a filtration unit in communication with an outlet of the reactor, the filtration unit configured to separate solid residue from a pregnant leached solution;
- a metal recovery unit in fluid communication with the filtration unit and configured to receive the pregnant leached solution, the metal recovery unit configured to generate intermediate metal products;
- and
- a metal refining unit in communication with the metal recovery unit, the metal refining unit configured to generate battery-grade metal products.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.