The New Jersey Institute of Technology's
Electronic Theses & Dissertations Project

Title:	Recovery of valuable metals from spent lithium-ion batteries using organic acids: assessment of technoeconomic feasibility
Author:	Lin, Leqi
View Online:	njit-etd2020-002 (xvii, 95 pages ~ 13.0 MB pdf)
Department:	Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Degree:	Master of Science
Program:	Civil Engineering
Document Type:	Thesis
Advisory Committee:	Zhang, Wen (Committee co-chair) Rodriguez-Freire, Lucia (Committee co-chair) Marhaba, Taha F. (Committee member) Lee, Eon Soo (Committee member)
Date:	2020-05
Keywords:	Metals recovery Organic acid Lithium-ion batteries Organic aqua regia Hydrometallurgy LCA
Availability:	Unrestricted
Abstract:	Lithium ion batteries (LIBs) are used in diverse electronic products with anticipated over 500 thousand tonnes of the waste LIBs globally in 2020. To protect the environment and also recover valuable materials such as lithium (Li) and cobalt (Co), our research employed a hydrometallurgy method and demonstrated that exposure of spent LIBs to Organic Aqua Regia (OAR) could leach Li and Co without the pre-separation of cathode from Al foil using organic solvents such as Dimethylformamide (DMF) and N-Methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP). The leaching efficiency of 99% and 94% for Li and Co were obtained with a leaching rate of 0.021, 0.167 mg·mg-1·h-1 respectively. Furthermore, our life cycle assessment (LCA) indicates that OAR could reduce 65% greenhouse gas (GHG) emission compared to extraction from natural mines or reduce 26% GHG emission compared to pyrometallurgy and hydrometallurgy processes with sulfuric acid.