A study on selective crushing and physical separation of roasted spent lithium ion batteries.

The pre-treatment was investigated of spent Li ion batteries for the subsequent hydrometallurgical recovery of Co, Li, Ni and Cu. Experiments were carried out using cylindrical batteries from personal computers and rectangular batteries employed in mobile phones which were subjected to roasting at 673-873 K under vacuum and then crushed using a single-axis cutter mill, a hammer crusher, a two-axis shear force crusher and a high- speed hammer mill. The crushed products were screened and the differences in the size distributions of the valuable metals in the fine and coarse particle size ranges were evaluated. Magnetic separation was applied to the product obtained from the crushing of the PC batteries under optimum conditions. The results showed that a combination of the shear force crusher and the high-speed hammer mill enhanced the selective crushing effect for both fine and coarse particle size ranges, leading to increased purity of the Co, Cu and Fe powder products obtained after sieving and magnetic separation.
The pre-treatment was investigated of spent Li ion batteries for the subsequent hydrometallurgical recovery of Co, Li, Ni and Cu. Experiments were carried out using cylindrical batteries from personal computers and rectangular batteries employed in mobile phones which were subjected to roasting at 673-873 K under vacuum and then crushed using a single-axis cutter mill, a hammer crusher, a two-axis shear force crusher and a high- speed hammer mill. The crushed products were screened and the differences in the size distributions of the valuable metals in the fine and coarse particle size ranges were evaluated. Magnetic separation was applied to the product obtained from the crushing of the PC batteries under optimum conditions. The results showed that a combination of the shear force crusher and the high-speed hammer mill enhanced the selective crushing effect for both fine and coarse particle size ranges, leading to increased purity of the Co, Cu and Fe powder products obtained after sieving and magnetic separation.