Reclamation of Lithium Cobalt Oxide from Waste Lithium Ion Batteries to Be Used as Recycled Active Cathode Materials

摘要

Waste laptop batteries (Type-Lithium ion) have been collected and manually dismantled in the current work. Active electrode materials were scraped off from the copper current collector and polyethylene separators. The aluminum current collectors were found to be severely damaged and attached with the electrode material. It was treated with NaOH later to be recovered as Al₂O_3. The leaching of LiCoO₂ was done by 3 M HCl aided by 5% H₂O₂ at 60°C from the scraped active electrode materials (LiCoO₂ and graphite) leaving the graphite completely. Co was precipitated as hydroxide by the addition of NaOH and later converted to Co₃O₄. The remaining solution was treated with saturated Na₂CO₃ to acquire Li₂CO₃ as crystalline precipitate with high purity. The recovery of Co and Li was 99% and 30%, respectively. Co₃O₄ and Li₂CO₃were mixed in stoichiometric proportions and calcined around 950°C with air supply to achieve LiCoO₂ successfully.