The separation and recovery of nickel and lithium from the sulfate leach liquor of spent lithium ion batteries using PC-88A

Abstract

The present paper deals with the extractive separation and selective recovery of nickel and lithium from the sulfate leachate of cathode scrap generated during the manufacture of LIBs. The conditions for extraction, scrubbing and stripping of nickel from lithium were optimized with an aqueous feed containing 2.54 kg·m-3 Ni and 4.82 kg·m-3 Li using PC-88A. Over 99.6% nickel was extracted with 0.15 kmol·m-3 PC-88A in two counter-current stages at O/A=1 and pH=6.5. Effective scrubbing Li from loaded organic was systematically studied with a dilute Na2CO3 solution (0.10 kmol·m-3). The McCabe-Thiele diagram suggests two counter-current scrubbing stages are required at O/A=2/3 to yield lithium-scrubbing efficiency of 99.6%. The proposed process showed advantages of simplicity, and high purity (99.9%) nickel sulfate recovery along with lithium to ensure the complete recycling of the waste from LIBs manufacturing process.