A two stage dross treatment capable of being performed in a single reaction vessel is disclosed. Dross, especially white dross, can be contacted with salt flux in a rotary furnace to recover metal from the dross. This first stage can recover metal during the conversion of white dross and salt flux to salt cake. In a second stage, the furnace can be raised to a sufficiently high temperature to evaporate the salt content of the salt cake, allowing the evaporated salt to exit the furnace and be separately condensed and collected. The result of the second stage is collected salt and salt-free oxides. After removing the salt-free oxides, residual heat in the furnace and collected salt can be used for a subsequent dross treatment.

A process for using acid to leach metals from metal silicate, oxide, or oxide-hydroxide feedstock with subsequent alkalinization of the leach liquor, thereby bringing target metal ions into solution and separating the metals as hydroxides, oxides, or oxide-hydroxides. Electrodialysis is used to recycle acid and base in the process. Configurations of the electrochemical cell and means of combining cells in stacks and in series are provided that enable production of acid at high concentration allowing for decreased reactor volumes for leaching and precipitation and improved solid/liquid separation characteristics of the leached slurry.

A method includes one or more of the following five steps: rough processing, comminuting the material, washing the material with acid, and collecting/sorting the material to recover an aluminum product or a very pure aluminum product. A system may execute one or more of these steps to recover an aluminum product or a very pure aluminum product.

A method and apparatus for processing a material are provided, the material being the upper layer from a metal melting process, the material containing one or more salts, the material containing one or more metals, the salts and/or metals being recycled as a result of the method/apparatus. The method includes feeding the material to a leaching step; obtaining a leachate from the leaching step; feeding the leachate to a drying step or spray drying step; obtaining a solid from the drying step or spray drying step. Off gases from the leaching step are used to provide heat to the drying step. The drying step provides a product well suited to being turned into pellets for reuse.

Provided are a method for removing at least one metal that can effectively remove metals from lithium ion battery waste, and a method for recovering metals. A method for removing at least one metal from lithium ion battery waste, wherein the lithium ion battery waste has a cathode material with cathode-derived metals adhering onto a cathode current collector containing aluminum, the aluminum being a metal to be removed, wherein the method includes, in any order: a crushing step of crushing the lithium ion battery waste and separating at least a part of the cathode-derived metals from the cathode current collector; and an alkali separation step of separating at least a part of the cathode-derived metals from the cathode current collector by bring the lithium ion battery waste into contact with an alkaline solution to dissolve the aluminum, wherein the method further includes, after the crushing step, a sieving step of sieving the lithium ion battery waste into a material on sieve and a material under sieve containing the cathode-derived metals separated from the cathode current collector in the crushing step, and wherein, when the sieving step is performed before the alkali separation step, at least a part of the material on sieve obtained in the sieving step is subjected to the alkali separation step.

Disclosed are approaches for recycling LIBs where lithium is recovered before the other node metals in order to increase the amount of lithium recovered. For such approaches, the other node metals need not be further refined or recovered and, despite the small loss of these other node metals as impurities in the first-recovered lithium, the available alternative dispositions for these other node metalssuch as in the form of multi-metal-oxides (MMO)can render the recovery of lithium before the other node metals to be advantageous. Several such approaches may feature nitration, roasting, lithium trapping, and/or other innovative features to facilitate greater and purer recoveries of the target LIB components.

Provided are a method for removing aluminum which can effectively remove aluminum, and a method for recovering metals. A method for removing aluminum includes a leaching step of bringing a raw material obtained from lithium ion battery waste, the raw material having battery powder containing at least aluminum and nickel and/or cobalt, into contact with an acidic leaching solution to leach the battery powder to obtain a leached solution, wherein a molar ratio of fluorine to aluminum (F/Al molar ratio) of the raw material is 1.3 or more, and wherein, in the leaching step, the acidic leaching solution contains calcium and fluorine, aluminum is precipitated with calcium and fluorine, and the resulting precipitate is contained in a leached residue.

The present disclosure provides a new method capable of separating Li and Al from waste of at least a positive electrode. A method for recycling a positive electrode material according to the present disclosure includes bringing waste of at least a positive electrode containing Li and Al into contact with water under presence of pressurized CO.sub.2 to allow Li and Al to leach into the water.