The present disclosure concerns a process for the concentration of lithium in metallurgical fumes. The process comprises the steps of: —providing a metallurgical molten bath furnace; —preparing a metallurgical charge comprising lithium-bearing material, transition metals, and fluxing agents; —smelting the metallurgical charge and fluxing agents in reducing conditions in said furnace, thereby obtaining a molten bath with an alloy and a slag phase; and, —optionally separating the alloy and the slag phase; characterized in that a major part of the lithium is fumed as LiCl from the molten slag, by addition of alkali or earth alkali chloride to the process. Using a single smelting step, valuable transition metals such as cobalt and nickel also present in the charge are collected in an alloy phase, while the lithium reports to the fumes. The lithium in the fumes is available in concentrated form, suitable for subsequent hydrometallurgical processing.

Various embodiments relate to several processes that may recover commodity chemicals from an alkaline metal-air battery. In various embodiments, while the cell is operating, various side products and waste streams may be collected and processed to regain use or additional value. Various embodiments also include processes to be performed after the cell has been disassembled, and each of its electrodes have been separated such as not to be an electrical hazard. The alkaline metal battery recycling processes described herein may provide multiple forms of commodity iron, high purity transition metal ores, fluoropolymer dispersions, various carbons, commodity chemicals, and catalyst dispersions.

The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for recovering copper, bronze and lead by allowing methane gas to flow into a reactor and heat-treating a mixture of copper oxide, tin oxide and lead oxide under a temperature condition of 700-900° C., and comprises the steps of: placing a mixture of copper oxide, tin oxide and lead oxide in a reactor; increasing the temperature inside the reactor; and allowing a reductive gas to flow into the reactor so as to heat-treat the mixture.

A method is described for recycling nickel from waste battery material. The method includes providing waste battery material comprising a nickel-containing oxide, reducing the nickel in the waste battery material to the zero oxidation state to provide a reduced waste battery material, reacting the reduced waste battery material with carbon monoxide to form Ni(CO).sub.4, and reacting the Ni(CO).sub.4 with a source of sulfate to form NiSO.sub.4. The NiSO.sub.4 product is useful as a nickel feedstock in various processes which require a nickel source, including processes which prepare new battery materials.

An active material recovery apparatus includes a heat treatment bath and a screening wall extending along a first axis. The heat treatment bath includes a heating zone and the screening wall includes a cooling zone. The active material recovery apparatus includes an exhaust injection and a degassing system. The heat treatment bath is configured to remove a binder and a conductive material in an active material layer and to perform heat treatment in air on an electrode scrap including the active material layer on a current collector. The screen wall is configured to recover the active material in powder form. The active material recovery apparatus is configured to separately recover the current collector that does not pass through the screening wall. The heat treatment bath includes protrusions in a sawtooth shape on a first cross-section orthogonal to the first axis.

A coupling system of copper slag recycling and CO.sub.2 mineralization process based on industrial solid waste includes the following steps: obtaining copper slags, performing a slag forming treatment, obtaining reforming slags, obtaining sponge iron, coupling the reforming slag with a CO.sub.2 mineralization process based on industrial solid waste, and coupling the CO.sub.2 generated in the process of obtaining sponge iron with the CO.sub.2 mineralization process based on industrial solid waste. The system includes a slag forming treatment device, a secondary treatment device, a first coupling device, and a second coupling device. The coupling system couples the recycling of copper slag with the existing CO.sub.2 mineralization process based on industrial solid waste. Various production lines can be organically integrated in a green and clean manner for both reforming slag and flue gas.

A method of manufacturing a valuable material product from an industrial dust is described. The method comprises: i) providing the industrial dust which comprises at least one valuable material and a first concentration of volatile constituents to a heating device with an operation temperature of 600° C. or more, ii) processing the industrial dust by the heating device, wherein processing comprises: iia) heating the industrial dust with a rate of 20° C./min or more, iib) thermally treating the industrial dust by the heating device with a treating temperature in the range of 900° C. to 1200° C., in particular in the range of 1000° C. to 1100° C., for 30 minutes or more, and iic) controlling and/or regulating the oxidizing conditions during processing, wherein processing comprises: at least partially removing the volatile constituents from the industrial dust, and iii) providing the valuable material product. Furthermore, the processed valuable material product is described.

A method for producing mixed metal salts containing manganese ions and at least one of cobalt ions and nickel ions, the method including: an Al removal step of subjecting an acidic solution containing at least manganese ions and aluminum ions, and at least one of cobalt ions and nickel ions, to removal of the aluminum ions by extracting the aluminum ions into a solvent, the acidic solution being obtained by subjecting battery powder of lithium ion batteries to a leaching step; and a precipitation step of neutralizing an extracted residual liquid obtained in the Al removal step under conditions where a pH is less than 10.0, to precipitate mixed metal salts comprising a metal salt of manganese and a metal salt of at least one of cobalt and nickel.

A method of recovering lead, antimony tin from lead acid batteries, lead bearing scrap and other lead bearing materials which includes smelting lead bearing materials in a reverb furnace to recover metallic lead; leaching the resultant slag produced in the reverb furnace with ammonium chloride (NH.sub.4Cl) to produce a slurry; precipitating antimony from the slurry with ferric chloride (FeCl.sub.3); performing a solid-liquid separation of the slag away from the resulting pregnant leach solution; precipitating lead carbonate (PbCO.sub.3) from the pregnant leach solution with carbon dioxide (CO.sub.2); recovering the precipitated lead carbonate (PbCO.sub.3) through solid-liquid separation; and processing the precipitated lead carbonate (PbCO.sub.3) in a reverb furnace to recover metallic lead.

An active material recovery apparatus capable of easily recovering an electrode active material from an electrode scrap in its intrinsic shape and a positive electrode active material reuse method using the active material recovery apparatus are provided. The active material recovery apparatus which is a rotary firing apparatus comprising a rod in a screw type therein includes a heat treatment bath and a screening wall arranged in a line along an axis of the rod, wherein the heat treatment bath constitutes a heating zone, and the screening wall constitutes a cooling zone; and an exhaust injection and degassing system, wherein the heat treatment bath removes a binder and a conductive material in an active material layer by performing heat treatment on an electrode scrap comprising the active material layer on a current collector in an air while rotating the electrode scrap around the axis of the rod and separates the current collector from the active material layer, and an active material in the active material layer passes through the screening wall and is recovered as an active material in powder form, and the current collector that does not pass through the screening wall is recovered separately.