Selective Recovery of Lithium from Ternary Spent Lithium-Ion Batteries Using Sulfate Roasting-Water Leaching Process

A novel sulfate roasting-water leaching method was proposed to selectively extract lithium from ternary spent lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). Ternary spent LIBs were first pretreated by discharge, thermal treatment, crushing and sieving to separate active powder from Al foil and Cu foil. The mixture of active powder and Na2SO4 was roasted, and final leaching of the roasted product was done at 80 °C for 120 min with hot water. Detailed operating parameters were systematically investigated. The results showed that more than 85% of Li was selectively leached, while efficiencies of Ni, Co and Mn were <0.5%, under such the conditions as roasting temperature of 750 °C, 100 wt% Na2SO4 and roasting time of 90 min.