Recovery of lithium ion batteries

A process for the reclaiming of copper, aluminum, carbon and cathode material from spent lithium ion batteries having a lithium metal oxide cathode material which comprises the steps of;

• a) crushing spent lithium ion batteries under an aqueous spray to form a slurry mixture;
• b) screening the slurry mixture through at least one mesh filter to recover the coarser pieces of aluminum and copper to form a screened slurry containing solids;
• c) recovering the solids from the screened slurry by filtration to obtain a filter cake;
• d) drying the filter cake from step c) to obtain a dried cake and heating the dried cake at a temperature of 400-800° C. to obtain a heated dried filter cake;
• e) forming an aqueous slurry of the heated dried filter cake from step d) and passing the aqueous slurry into a froth or flotation apparatus to generate a froth or foam containing carbon;
• f) filtering the froth or foam from step e) to recover carbon, and
• g) recovering a cathode material from the bottom of said froth or flotation apparatus of step e).