Recovery of metal values from a mixture of spent lithium-ion batteries and nickel-metal hydride batteries

A novel process for the recovery of metal values from a mixture of spent lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) and nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) batteries is presented. The iron shells of spent batteries were firstly dismantled using a specially designed dismantling machine. Then after the separation of aluminum substrate and electrolyte and the subsequent heating treatment, iron shells and metal-mesh substrate in the dismantled substances were effectively separated with a sieve. The powder residues including LiCoO2, copper oxides, metal nickel and hydrogen storage alloy and their oxides were dissolved using 3 mol L− 1 H2SO4 + 3 wt.% H2O2 at 70 °C, S/L = 1:15 for 5 h. Finally, rare earths (RE) were precipitated as sodium RE double sulfate, copper was extracted as CuSO4 with 10 wt.% Acorga M5640 at pH = 1.5–1.7, cobalt and nickel were extracted as their sulfates with 1 M Cyanex272 at pH = 5.1–5.3 and 6.3–6.5, respectively. The experimental results showed that the recovery exceeded 94% for all metal values.