抄録
In recent years, the demand for the lithium-ion battery is increasing due to the increasing demand for laptop computer, cellular phone and automobiles. The positive electrode of the lithium-ion secondary battery is made of lithium oxide with mainly cobalt, nickel and manganese etc.. An effective recycling method not only would collect cobalt and lithium, but also separate other materials from the used batteries. In this research, the optimum processing flow sheet is investigated and their efficiency is evaluated. The battery is safely decomposed by underwater explosion and then cutter mill. After the over 1mm in size particles are separated by the magnetic separation, eddy current separation and gravity separation by air table, the plastic, Al, Fe, and Cu products are obtained. On the other hand, the particles less than 1mm in size are effectively separated by flotation and carbon and positive electrode powders are recovered. The lithium cobalt powders are leached, neutralized and heated as Co3O4 and lithium is recovered by the adsorption method.
