A method according to an embodiment is for recovering a valuable metal from a waste electrode material of a lithium secondary battery by using lithium carbonate. An anode-cathode mixed electrode material that has been separated by draining, crushing, screening, and sorting a waste lithium secondary battery is preprocessed. A precipitation operation performed by adding lithium carbonate (Li2CO3) to a metal melt acquired by performing sulfuric acid dissolution using sulfuric acid. A valuable metal such as nickel, cobalt, manganese, aluminum, and copper is recovered as a residue in the form of a carbonate composite, and a lithium sulfate (Li2SO4) aqueous solution including lithium is recovered as a filtrate.

A method according to an embodiment is for recovering a valuable metal from a waste electrode material of a lithium secondary battery by using lithium carbonate. An anode-cathode mixed electrode material that has been separated by draining, crushing, screening, and sorting a waste lithium secondary battery is preprocessed. A precipitation operation performed by adding lithium carbonate (Li2CO3) to a metal melt acquired by performing sulfuric acid dissolution using sulfuric acid. A valuable metal such as nickel, cobalt, manganese, aluminum, and copper is recovered as a residue in the form of a carbonate composite, and a lithium sulfate (Li2SO4) aqueous solution including lithium is recovered as a filtrate.

A process for water removal and/or recycling of sodium sulphate and/or sodium dithionate containing liquors derived from processing a cobalt resource derived from components of lithium ion batteries comprising steps of deriving from the cobalt resource a solution containing cobalt sulphate and cobalt dithionate, precipitation of cobalt as cobaltous carbonate or cobaltous hydroxide followed by removal thereof from the liquor, crystallization of sodium sulphate and sodium dithionate and removal of the resulting crystals, followed by heating of the crystals to anhydrous sodium sulphate, sulphur dioxide and water and then separating the anhydrous sodium sulphate.