A method and apparatus to reclaim metals from scrap material such as automobile shredder residue (ASR) that, after separating out light density components, separates out friable material such as rock and glass by crushing and screening operations to generate a high metal content product.

Disclosed herein are methods and compositions for increasing the alumina content of a bauxite ore prior to alumina extraction by an extractive process, such as the Bayer process. By adding a beneficiation agent to an aqueous ore slurry, then applying a gravitational force to separate, or partition, the slurry into a beneficiary and a gangue, a number of quantifiable benefits are observed. These include increased alumina content and reduced silica content in the beneficiary solids as compared to the starting ore. These benefits are in excess of those observed by pre-extraction gravitational separation of ore slurries without the addition of a beneficiation agent. Beneficiation agents include DADMAC polymers, and combinations of DADMAC polymers with dextrans. The beneficiary is collected and applied to an extractive process, such as the Bayer process.

Bauxite grinding compositions that can significantly reduce the viscosity of bauxite slurry, which allow alumina refinery plants to increase throughput of bauxite grinding or pre-desilication. Described are processes to improve the grinding of a bauxite containing slurry in a Bayer process comprising: adding an effective amount of a bauxite grinding composition to the bauxite containing slurry before or during the grinding step or pre-desilication step, wherein the bauxite grinding composition comprises dextran, maltitol or a co-polymer.

Method for producing thermally processed material (50), the method comprising providing material (35) to be thermally processed, providing carbon-containing scrap material (20) from an electrolysis cell (10) for the production of primary aluminium (15), introducing the material (35) to be thermally processed into a furnace (40), processing the carbon-containing scrap material (20) to produce a scrap fuel (55), and thermally processing the material (35) to be thermally processed in the furnace (40) using energy generated by burning the scrap fuel (55) such as to produce thermally processed material (50).

Provided is a method for recovering a valuable metal from a material including waste lithium ion batteries or the like. The method comprises: a preparation step for preparing a material including at least Li, Al, and a valuable metal; a reduction and melting step for carrying out a reduction and melting process on the material to obtain a reduced product including a slag and an alloy containing a valuable metal; and a slag separation step for separating the slag from the reduced product to recover the alloy. In the preparation step and/or the reduction and melting step, a flux containing Ca is added. In the reduction and melting step, the reduction and melting process is performed such that the mass ratio of aluminum oxide/(aluminum oxide+calcium oxide+lithium oxide), in the generated slag, is set to 0.5-0.65, and the slag heating temperature is set to 1400-1600? ? C.

Disclosed is a method for recovering a waste lithium cobalt oxide battery, the method comprising: feeding a lithium cobalt oxide battery black powder in a column-shaped container, adding a first acid to the column-shaped container for heat leaching until solids in the column-shaped container are not reduced any more so as to obtain a first leachate and leaching residues, wherein the first acid is a weak acid, and a filtering structure is arranged at the bottom of the column-shaped container; and adding a second acid to the column-shaped container containing the leaching residues for heat leaching until solids in the column-shaped container are not reduced any more so as to obtain a second leachate and graphite, wherein the second acid is a strong acid. According to the present invention, consumption of an inorganic strong acid can be reduced, emission of strong acid gas is reduced, and green and low-carbon heat leaching of the black powder is achieved.

The method for recovering lithium hydroxide from a lithium secondary battery allows a powder comprising lithium and valuable metals to be prepared from the lithium secondary battery. The powder is reduced to form a preliminary precursor mixture including a preliminary lithium precursor and valuable metal-containing particles. The preliminary precursor mixture is primarily washed with water (H.sub.2O) to generate a lithium precursor aqueous solution and a precipitate. The lithium precursor is recovered through solid-liquid separation of the lithium precursor aqueous solution and the precipitate. The lithium precursor is recovered, through additional washing and solid-liquid separation, from the precipitate obtained through the solid-liquid separation. A calcium compound is added in the primary washing operation or the additional washing operation. Therefore, a highly-pure lithium precursor can be obtained without a complex leaching process and additional processes resulting from a wet process of an acid solution.

A cyclone temperature control system for a cyclone of a decoating system includes a controller, a gas mover, and a control valve that is movable between a fully open position and a closed position. A method of controlling the temperature of the cyclone includes determining a cyclone temperature of the cyclone and comparing the cyclone temperature to a cyclone threshold temperature. The method also includes opening the temperature control valve and directing at least some heated gas from an afterburner of the decoating system to mix with exhaust gas from a kiln of the decoating system to increase the temperature of the exhaust gas if the cyclone temperature is less than the cyclone threshold temperature.

A decoating system includes a dust cyclone and cooled conveyor. The dust cyclone is configured to receive an exhaust gas from a decoating kiln, filter organic particulate matter from the exhaust gas as dust, and discharge the dust at a discharge temperature. The cooled conveyor is configured to receive the dust from the dust cyclone and cool the dust to a dust processing temperature that is less than the spontaneous reaction temperature.

An improved beta(?)-spodumene (?LiAlSi.sub.2O.sub.6) nitric acid conversion process produces discrete lithium (Li), aluminum (Al) and silica (SiO.sub.2) materials by: (i) converting lithium nitrate, LiNO.sub.3, to lithium carbonate, Li.sub.2CO.sub.3; (ii) creating a Al-rich precipitate either by thermally decomposing aluminum nitrate, Al(NO.sub.3).sub.3, or by reacting Al(NO.sub.3).sub.3 with aqueous and/or solid ammonium carbonate, (NH.sub.4).sub.2CO.sub.3; and (iii) forming a solid SiO.sub.2-rich aluminosilicate residue by selectively leaching Li and Al from ?-spodumene. Three key reactants consumed during processingnitric acid (HNO.sub.3), ammonia (NH.sub.3), and magnesium oxide (MgO)may be regenerated internally by closed-loop chemical cycles, this feature of the process greatly improving its economics in commercial applications.