The invention concerns a process for the separation of cobalt from lithium present in a charge comprising lithium-ion batteries or related products, comprising the steps of: smelting the charge using a bath furnace equipped with a submerged air-fed plasma torch for injecting plasma gas into the melt; defining and maintaining a bath redox potential where cobalt is reduced to the metallic state and reporting to an alloy phase, and whereby lithium is oxidized as Li.sub.2O and reporting to the slag phase; decanting and separating the phases. It is characterized in that the reduction and oxidizing steps are performed simultaneously. A suitably low cobalt concentration is obtained in the slag.

Provided are a method and molten salt system for recovering rare earth elements from NdFeB waste and use of ferric oxide as a raw material of a manganese-zinc ferrite. The molten salt system comprising the following components in percentage by weight: 40% of K.sub.3AlF.sub.6 or Na.sub.3AlF.sub.6, 40% of KBe.sub.2F.sub.5, and 20% of KAlF.sub.4. By adopting the three-component molten salt system of the present invention, recovery rates of rare earth elements extracted from NdFeB waste all can reach 98% or above. By adopting the three-component molten salt system, extraction temperature is 100-400? C. lower than that of all current similar halogenation methods, and extraction time is fold shorted to 1-3 h. The reduction of the extraction temperature and the shortening of the melting time greatly reduce the energy consumption of extracting rare earth elements from NdFeB waste, and the economic benefits are remarkable.

The present invention provides a method for producing a valuable metal from a starting material that contains waste lithium ion batteries, the method being capable of effectively obtaining a metal which has a reduced phosphorus content. The present invention provides a method for producing a valuable metal from a starting material that contains waste lithium ion batteries containing phosphorus, the method comprising: a melting step in which the starting material is melted, thereby obtaining a melt; and a slag separation step in which slag is separated from the melt and an alloy containing a valuable metal is recovered. According to the present invention, an alloy is recovered, while making it sure that the recovery ratio of cobalt from the starting material is from 95.0% to 99.6%, thereby suppressing the phosphorus content in the alloy to 0.1% by mass or less.

The invention relates to a process for selectively and continuously extracting a series of desired species from a matrix, comprising the steps of:injecting a plasma (310) in an extraction chamber by means of a plasma torch,continuously monitoring (320) the excited elements extracted from the matrix and contained in the plasma by optical emission spectroscopy, and for each species of the series,setting a distance (330) between the support and the plasma torch, and the composition of the injected plasma as a function of the monitored excited elements so that only one desired species of the series of species is being extracted from the matrix under molecular form, andproviding (400) a plate in the extraction chamber, exterior to the plasma, causing collection of molecules comprising said desired species by deposition onto the surface of the plate.

The present disclosure provides systems and methods for dismantling and/or recycling liquid metal batteries. Such methods can include cryogenically freezing liquid metal battery components, melting and separating liquid metal battery components, and/or treating liquid metal battery components with water.

A method, apparatus and system for processing a composite waste source, such as e-waste, is disclosed. The composite waste source may comprise low-, moderate and high-melting point constituents, such as plastics, metals and ceramics. The composite waste source is heated to a first temperature zone, causing at least some of the low-melting point constituents to at least partially thermally transform. The composite waste source is subsequently heated to a second, higher, temperature zone, causing at least some of the moderate-melting point constituents to at least partially thermally transform. At least some of the at least partially thermally transformed constituents may be recovered. The method, apparatus and system disclosed may provide for the recovery and reuse of materials which would otherwise be sent to landfill or incinerated.

A recycling process that facilitates separation of materials from metallic substrates by cryogenically cooling the recyclable items to induce embrittlement of the metals. Embrittled metals may be shattered more efficiently and with a higher yield of materials bound to the metallic substrates. Metal embrittlement may be induced by mixing the source stream with liquid nitrogen, and cooling the stream to approximately minus 200? F. Multiple recovery stages may be employed to maximize the yield of the target materials. Embodiments may enable recovery of platinum group metals (PGMs) from catalytic converters with metallic foil substrates. Yield of PGMs may be enhanced by employing a primary recovery stage and a secondary recovery stage, by cryogenically cooling input materials for each stage, by mixing the pulverized material in secondary recovery with an aqueous solution to dissipate attractive charges, and by wet screening the pulverized material slurry to obtain the PGM particles.

The present disclosure concerns a 2-step smelting process, for recovering of Ni and Co from batteries and other sources.

The process comprises the steps of: defining an oxidizing level Ox, and a battery-bearing metallurgical charge; oxidizing smelting of the metallurgical charge by injecting an O.sub.2-bearing gas into the melt to reach the defined oxidizing level Ox; and, reducing smelting of the obtained slag using a heat source and a reducing agent.

The process is more energy-efficient than a single-step reducing smelting process and provides for a higher purity alloy and for a cleaner final slag.

Provided is a method of effectively separating impurities, in particular, iron contained in a raw material to be processed, and recovering valuable metal at a high rate of recovery. Provided is a method of producing valuable metal including cobalt (Co), comprising: a preparation step for preparing a raw material containing at least iron (Fe) and the valuable metal; a fusing step for heating and fusing the raw material into a melt and thereafter making the melt into a fusion containing alloy and slag; and a slag separation step for separating the slag out from the fusion to recover alloy containing the valuable metal. In the preparation step, the mass ratio of Fe/Co in the raw material is controlled to 0.5 or less. In the fusion step, the oxygen partial pressure in the melt generated by heating and fusing the raw material is made to be 10.sup.?9.0 atm or less.

A method for producing a PGM collector alloy comprising the steps of: (1) providing (a) copper and/or silver, (b) material, which is to be processed melt-metallurgically, in the form of at least one sodium and/or potassium aluminosilicate support equipped with at least one PGM, and (c) at least one compound selected from the group consisting of iron oxides, calcium oxide, magnesium oxide, calcium carbonate, magnesium carbonate, sodium carbonate, and potassium carbonate, (2) joint melting of the materials provided in step (1) at a temperature in the range of 1250 to <1450? C. by maintaining a 100:40 to 100:20 weight ratio of the materials provided in sub-steps (1b) and (1c), and a 35:65 to 80:20 weight ratio of copper and/or silver: PGM by forming a melt comprising two phases of different density, (3) separating the upper phase of low density of molten slag from the lower phase of high density of molten PGM collector alloy by utilizing the density difference, (4) allowing the melting phases separated from one another to cool down and solidify, and (5) collecting the solidified PGM collector alloy.