Archives of Metallurgy and Materials

Abstract

This study was attempted to study for recovery of Li as Li 2 CO 3 from cathode active material, especially NCA (LiNiCoAlO 2 ), recovered from spent lithium ion batteries. This consists of two major processes, carbonation using CO 2 and water leaching. Carbonation using CO 2 was performed at 600ºC, 700ºC and 800ºC, and NCA (LiNiCoAlO 2 ) was phase-separated into Li 2 CO 3 , NiO and CoO. The water leaching process using the differences in solubility was performed to obtain the optimum conditions by using the washing time and the ratio of the sample to the distilled water as variables. As a result, NCA (LiNiCoAlO 2 ) was phase-separated into Li 2 CO 3 and NiO, CoO at 700ºC, and Li 2 CO 3 in water was recovered through vacuum filtration after 1 hour at a 1:30 weight ratio of the powder and distilled water. Finally, Li 2 CO 3 containing Li of more than 98 wt.% was recovered.