Disclosed is a process for recovering copper from secondary raw materials including in a feed batch smelting in a furnace a feedstock including copper oxide and elemental iron for forming a concentrated copper intermediate, whereby heat is generated by the redox reactions converting iron to oxide and copper oxide to copper, whereby copper collects in a molten liquid metal phase and iron oxides collect in a supernatant liquid slag phase, whereby at the end of the batch the liquid phases separate and may be removed from the furnace as smelter slag and as the concentrated copper intermediate, wherein during the smelting step an excess of elemental iron is maintained in the furnace relative to the amount required for completing the redox reactions, and further heat input is provided by the injection of an oxygen containing gas for oxidizing the excess iron.

Systems and methods for direct recycling and upcycling of spent cathode materials using Flame-Assisted Spray Pyrolysis Technology (FAST). In illustrative embodiments, cathode layers are separated and collected from spent battery cells. The cathode laminate is ground to a powdered form and treated to remove contaminants by sifting into a hot stream of air which heats the powders, burning off contaminants. After cooling and particle collection, the powders may be dispersed into leaching solution to dissolve metal oxides and create an acid metal solution or ground into nano-sized primary particles and mixed with dispersing liquids to form a solution. The solution may be mixed with glycerol and additional metal salts to create a final precursor solution, which may undergo spray pyrolysis followed by drying and calcination to create cathode materials with high consistency and repeatability, or mixed with an alkaline metal salt solution and undergo electrodeposition to recover desired metal salts.

A method of recovering substantially rare earth elements (REEs) from magnets, including first dissolving a magnet to yield a solution containing Nd, Pr, and Dy, and then equilibrating a first column with Cu2+ solution to yield a first equilibrated column, introducing the solution to the first equilibrated column, and introducing a ligand solution to the first equilibrated column to establish three bands of different liquid compositions in the column, wherein the three bands comprise a Dy/Nd mixed band, a first pure Nd band, and a Nd/Pr mixed band. Next, sending the Dy/Nd mixed band to a second column containing a Cu2+ solution and introducing a ligand solution to the second column to establish a pure Dy band and a second pure Nd band in the second column, and sending the Nd/Pr mixed band to a third column containing a Cu2+ solution and introducing a ligand solution to the third column to establish a third pure Nd band and a pure Pr band in the third column. Finally, eluting the respective pure Nd bands to recover Nd, eluting the pure Dy band to recover Dy, and eluting the pure Pr band to recover Pr.

A method of recovering an active metal of a lithium secondary battery according to an embodiment of the present invention includes preparing a waste cathode active material mixture obtained from a waste cathode of a lithium secondary battery, forming a preliminary precursor mixture by reacting the waste cathode active material mixture with a reactive gas in a fluidized bed reactor, and selectively recovering a lithium precursor from the preliminary precursor mixture. The fluidized bed reactor includes a reactor body and a horizontal expansion bed, and a ratio of a diameter of the horizontal expansion bed relative to a diameter of the reactor body is 3 or more to improve a recovery efficiency of a lithium secondary battery.

A heat treatment apparatus used in a process of recovering lithium carbonate from a waste cathode material and a lithium carbonate recovery apparatus using the same are provided. The heat treatment apparatus includes a heat treatment furnace having an inlet through which an object to be treated is input and an outlet through which the heat-treated object is discharged, a support section rotatably supporting the heat treatment furnace, a burner provided in the heat treatment furnace to supply combustion gas to the heat treatment furnace, and an exhaust gas re-supply device re-supplying a portion of the combustion gas discharged from the heat treatment furnace to the heat treatment furnace, wherein the heat treatment furnace is divided into a first region in which the inlet is disposed, a second region connected to the first region, and a third region connected to the second region and in which the burner is disposed.

Proposed is a separation method of black powder of an automotive waste secondary battery. More particularly, a method of separating a black powder (Ni, Co, Mn, Li C)+metal (Cu, Al) compound extracted from an automotive waste secondary battery through magnetic separation and particle separation is proposed. The separation method of black powder of an automotive waste secondary battery according to an embodiment of the present disclosure includes: (a) extracting black powder+metal compound from a waste secondary battery; (b) separating the black powder+metal compound into black powder and a metal compound through particle separation; and (c) separating Co and Ni, and non-extracted Mn, Li, and C by extracting Co and Ni from the black powder through gravity separation.

There is provided a method for collecting and reusing an active material from positive electrode scrap. The method of reusing a positive electrode active material of the present disclosure includes (a) thermally treating a positive electrode scrap comprising an active material layer comprising nickel, cobalt and manganese on a current collector in air for thermal decomposition of a binder and a conductive material in the active material layer, to separate the current collector from the active material layer, and collecting an active material in the active material layer, (b) washing the active material collected form the step (a) with a lithium compound solution which is basic in an aqueous solution and drying, and (c) annealing the active material washed from the step (b) with an addition of a lithium precursor to obtain a reusable active material.

Provided is a method for treating an alloy by which nickel and/or cobalt can be selectively isolated from an alloy that contains copper as well as nickel and/or cobalt, in a waste lithium ion battery. The present invention is a method for treating an alloy, by which a solution that contains nickel and/or cobalt is obtained from an alloy that contains copper as well as nickel and/or cobalt, the method including: a leaching step in which a leachate is obtained by subjecting an alloy to an acid-based leaching treatment under conditions in which a sulfurizing agent is also present; a reduction step in which a reduced solution is obtained by subjecting the leachate to a reduction treatment using a reducing agent; and an oxidation/neutralization step in which a solution that contains nickel and/or cobalt is obtained by adding an oxidizing agent and also a neutralizing agent to the reduced solution.

Provided is a method for producing lithium hydroxide, which can obtain lithium hydroxide from lithium sulfate with a relatively low cost. A method for producing lithium hydroxide from lithium sulfate includes: a hydroxylation step of allowing the lithium sulfate to react with barium hydroxide in a liquid to provide a lithium hydroxide solution; a barium removal step of removing barium ions in the lithium hydroxide solution using a cation exchange resin and/or a chelate resin; and a crystallization step of precipitating lithium hydroxide in the lithium hydroxide solution that has undergone the barium removal step.

The invention disclosed a method for recycling rare earth elements from waste light-emitting electronic components by pyrolysis and alkaline melting-acid leaching. Based on the pyrolysis properties of the organic polymer, through catalytic pyrolysis of the organic polymer material in electronic components and convert the carbon in the residue into water gas, realize high-efficient dismantling of waste electronic component packaging materials. The traditional problems that the compositions of waste light-emitting electronic components are difficult to disassemble are solved, the generated pyrolysis gas and water gas can continuously supply energy for the pyrolysis system and recover the heat in the flue gas to save energy. Meanwhile, based on the chemical dissolution reaction mechanism of phosphors, the combination process of alkali melting, and acid leaching is used to efficiently recover rare earth elements from the waste light-emitting electronic components, and the step leaching of rare earth elements is realized. The rare earth oxalate can be recovered by precipitation, which greatly reduces the difficulty of late separation and purification.