Disclosed herein are processes and systems relating to separation, handling, and disposal of undesirable metals to facilitate recovery of desirable metals, including lithium. Undesirable metals may be precipitated at high pH and separated from a liquid resource to facilitate recovery of the desirable metals. The precipitated undesirable metals may then be redissolved and recombined with the liquid resource for disposal.

Disclosed is a method for removing aluminum in a ternary battery material leachate by adopting an extraction method, which comprises the following steps: (1) saponification: mixing an extraction solvent with a saponifying agent to obtain a saponified extraction solvent; (2) extraction: mixing the ternary battery material leachate with the saponified extraction solvent to obtain a loaded organic phase and a raffinate; (3) back extraction: mixing the loaded organic phase with a back-extraction agent, followed by performing a back-extraction to obtain an organic phase and a back-extraction solution; the extraction solvent comprises an extracting agent and a diluent. The extraction method is adopted to separate nickel, cobalt, manganese and aluminum, having the advantages of less heavy metal entrainment, short process flow, and high metal recovery rate. The extraction rate of the aluminum can reach 97.42 percent.

A method for recovering metals from tungsten-containing metallic materials includes the steps of: providing a cathode and the tungsten-containing metallic material as an anode in an electrolyte solution which has a neutral, acidic or basic pH value; and subjecting the tungsten-containing metallic material to an electrolysis process under a power density that is greater than 3 W/cm.sup.2 on the anode so that a passivation layer formed on the anode during the electrolysis process is broken down to permit the tungsten-containing metallic material to be continuously dissolved and oxidized, and a tungsten-containing compound is formed in the electrolyte solution.

A method for purifying Ac from a mixture includes Ac and at least one element selected from Ra, Pb, Po, Bi and La. The method includes the steps of: (a) performing a first separation using a first extraction chromatographic column based on a first resin (either a diglycolamide resin or a dialkylphosphoric acid resin) and a first matrix solution; and (b) performing a second separation using a second extraction chromatographic column based on a second resin (respectively either a dialkylphosphoric acid resin or a diglycolamide resin).

A process for removal of aluminium and iron in the recycling of rechargeable batteries comprising providing a leachate from black mass, adding phosphoric acid (H.sub.3PO.sub.4) to said leachate and adjusting the pH to form iron phosphate (FePO.sub.4) and aluminium phosphate (AlPO.sub.4), precipitating and removing the formed FePO.sub.4 and AlPO.sub.4, and forming a filtrate for further recovery of cathode metals, mainly NMC-metals and lithium.

The present disclosure provides a method for recovering metal from metal-containing waste material by leaching. In the method comprising providing aqueous solution (14), providing leaching agent precursor, providing a source of external energy (10), treating the aqueous solution (14) with the external energy (10) to form reactive species, reacting the leaching agent precursor with the reactive species to form a leaching agent and to obtain a leaching solution, providing metal-containing material, reacting the metal-containing material with the leaching solution to obtain soluble metal complexes, and recovering the metal complexes. The present disclosure also provides a device for recovering metal by leaching.

An improved method for recovering metals from spent supported catalysts, including spent supported hydroprocessing catalysts. The method and associated processes comprising the method are useful to recover spent supported catalyst metals used in the petroleum and chemical processing industries. The method generally involves a combination of a pyrometallurgical and a hydrometallurgical method and includes forming a potassium carbonate calcine from the spent supported catalyst containing Group VIIIB/Group VIB/Group VB metal compound(s) combined with potassium carbonate, and extracting and recovering soluble Group VIB metal and soluble Group VB metal compounds from the potassium carbonate calcine.

A system for collecting mercury from feed material that can be tailings comprises: a water inlet for forming a slurry containing the tailings; at least one screen for separating tailings from the slurry to form a screened slurry; a rotatable collection chamber containing at least one plate, a drive for rotating the collection chamber for collecting mercury on the plate to provide a discharge material comprising water and treated tailings, the treated tailings containing less mercury than in the feed material.

A waste lithium battery recovery system includes a feeding device, a steam generating device, a supercharger, a water ion generating device, a lithium battery processing device, a condensate tank, a plasma exhaust device, and a recovery processing device. In practice, the steam generating device produces saturated steam. The supercharger heats the saturated steam into superheated steam. The water ion generating device transforms the superheated steam into water ions. The lithium battery processing device performs reactions of molecular scission, pyrolysis and carbonization, and electrolytes and separators of the waste lithium batteries are treated by the water ions to form carbon residues, gas-liquid wastes, and inorganic wastes. The gas-liquid wastes are processed by the condensate tank and the plasma exhaust device to form harmless gases and liquids. The inorganic wastes are processed by the recovery processing device to produce the metals.

Disclosed are applications of a carboxylic compound serving as an extracting agent and a metal ion extraction method. The carboxylic compound is provided with the structure as represented by formula I. The extracting agent as represented by formula I is characterized by a secondary atom at position α of the carboxyl group, in distinction from a primary carbon carboxylic acid at position α and a tertiary carbon carboxylic acid at position α, the presence of a secondary carbon carboxylic acid provides a proper steric hindrance, provides improved selectivity with respect to ions, and provides a high separation coefficient, low stripping acidity, and high load rate when used for the extraction and separation of metal ions; moreover, the carboxylic compound of formula I has great stability and low aqueous solubility, allows an extraction process to be stable, reduces environmental pollution, reduces costs, and provides significant application prospects.