Recovery of lithium and cobalt from waste lithium ion batteries of mobile phone

In view of the stringent environmental regulations, availability of limited natural resources and ever
increasing need of alternative energy critical elements, an environmental eco-friendly leaching process
is reported for the recovery of lithium and cobalt from the cathode active materials of spent lithiumion
batteries of mobile phones. The experiments were carried out to optimize the process parameters
for the recovery of lithium and cobalt by varying the concentration of leachant, pulp density, reductant
volume and temperature. Leaching with 2 M sulfuric acid with the addition of 5% H2O2 (v/v) at a pulp
density of 100 g/L and 75 C resulted in the recovery of 99.1% lithium and 70.0% cobalt in 60 min. H2O2
in sulfuric acid solution acts as an effective reducing agent, which enhance the percentage leaching of
metals. Leaching kinetics of lithium in sulfuric acid fitted well to the chemical controlled reaction model
i.e. 1 (1 X)1/3 = kct. Leaching kinetics of cobalt fitted well to the model ‘ash diffusion control dense
constant sizes spherical particles’ i.e. 1 3(1 X)2/3 + 2(1 X) = kct. Metals could subsequently be separated
selectively from the leach liquor by solvent extraction process to produce their salts by crystallization
process from the purified solution.