Efficient recovery of valuable metals from spent Lithium-ion batteries by pyrite method with hydrometallurgy process

•Pyrite is artfully employed in the cathode recovery of spent LIBs firstly.•About 98 %∼99.9 % of valuable metal ions were extracted into solution.•The thermodynamics and kinetics of the leaching process were deeply studied.•The two-element synergistic leaching mechanism of pyrite was explored in detail.