Biological Leaching and Chemical Precipitation Methods for Recovery of Co and Li from Spent Lithium-Ion Batteries

Abstract

Spent Li-ion batteries (LIBs) are highly rich in cobalt and lithium that need to be recovered to reduce shortages of these valuable metals and decrease their potential environmental risks. This study applied bioleaching using Aspergillus niger strains MM1 and SG1 and Acidithiobacillus thiooxidans 80191 for removal of Co and Li from spent LIB under type 1 and type 2 conditions. Moreover, metal recovery was attempted from the fungal leaching solution by sodium sulfide, sodium hydroxide, and sodium oxalate for Co and then for Li using sodium carbonate. The findings of this work show that metal removal in fungal bioleaching under type 2 system was highly comparable or even better than bacterial or acid leaching. A significant quantity of Co (82%) and Li (100%) dissolution was observed in strain MM1; however, metal solubilization was poor in strain 80191 because only 22% Co and 66% Li solubilized. A high amount of Co precipitated potentially as cobalt sulfide (100%), cobalt hydroxide (100%), or cobalt oxalate (88%), whereas Li precipitated as lithium carbonate (73.6%). Finally, results of this study suggest that fungal bioleaching could be an environmentally friendly approach for solubilization and recovery of considerable quantities of metals from spent LIBs.

Biosynthesis of Nanomaterials by Shewanella Species for Application in Lithium Ion Batteries

“…Compared with the well-established conventional recycling of lead-acid batteries, there are currently no procedures in place for the recycling of spent LIBs ( Gaines, 2014 ). However, bioleaching appears to be an environment-friendly way to recover valuable compounds such as Co, Ni, or Au, as well as As or Te in spent LIBs ( Biswal et al, 2018 ). Apart from the issue of recycling, it is desirable to synthesize valuable nanomaterials using non-toxic resources.…”

Tolerance of three fungal species to lithium and cobalt: Implications for bioleaching of spent rechargeable Li‐ion batteries

“…These metals have increased in demand as rechargeable Li-ion batteries now power multiple electronic devices such as laptops, cell phones, power tools and electric/hybrid cars (Wanger 2011;Goonan 2012). Recent studies on recovery of Li and Co have demonstrated the effectiveness of fungal bioleaching on cathode material from rechargeable Li-ion batteries (Bahaloo-Horeh et al 2016Bahaloo-Horeh and Mousavi 2017;Biswal et al 2018). If fungal bioleaching of Li and Co from spent batteries proves scientifically and economically viable, it could achieve important dual benefits of keeping spent batteries out of the solid-waste stream and decreasing the need for mining virgin Li and Co.…”

Extraction of Lithium from Single-Crystalline Lithium Manganese Oxide Nanotubes Using Ammonium Peroxodisulfate

“…The grown interest in lithium extraction derived from water resources is attributed to its low cost, natural abundance, and environmental friendliness (Battistel et al, 2020). Great efforts have been devoted to selective recovery of Li + from water resources, including precipitation (Biswal et al, 2018), evaporative crystallization (Ooi et al, 2017), solvent extraction (Zhang et al, 2020), electrochemical adsorption (Battistel et al, 2020;Du et al, 2016), and ion exchange adsorption . The precipitation and evaporative crystallization are limited for processing high concentrated Li + solutions, which requires a pre-concentration process that entails tedious treatment and large energy consumption.…”