There is provided a process for treating particulate scrap material. The process includes emplacing the particulate scrap material and a reagent material within a calcining zone with effect that a reactive process is effected such that a calcined metal material product is obtained, and carbonylating a carbonylation precusor material with effect that a carbonylated product is obtained, wherein the carbonylation precursor material is derived from the calcined metal material product.

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.

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.

Recovery of scandium from mined red mud includes adding an acid to a quantity of red mud for converting oxides in the red mud, and roasting the quantity of red mud for decomposing compounds having low thermal stability, typically iron and titanium. Water is added to the roasted red mud for leaching the converted oxides into a leach liquor mixture including scandium and other dissolved rare earths, and the leach liquor mixture is agitated by sonication or ball milling to increase an exposed surface area of red mud particles in the leach liquor. PH of the leach liquor is adjusted to precipitate the rare earths while leaving the scandium in solution in the leach liquor, followed by precipitating the separated scandium oxalate remaining in the leach liquor by reducing the pH and adding oxalic acid. Precipitated scandium oxalate may then be filtered from the leach liquor.

A method for recovering an active metal of a lithium secondary battery according to an embodiment of the present application whereby a used lithium-containing mixture is prepared, and the used lithium-containing mixture is treated with a hydrogen reduction to prepare a preliminary precursor mixture. The preliminary precursor mixture is washed with water to generate a lithium precursor including lithium hydroxide. Lithium hydroxide can be obtained by the washing treatment with high purity.

A process for recycling and reusing supported Pd membranes includes the separation of the Pd (or Pd alloy) layer from the support by contacting the Pd membrane with hydrogen under pressure and at low temperature and then with a second gas that is different from hydrogen. The Pd layer separated from the support can then be treated to solubilize the Pd and, where appropriate, the alloy metal(s) to obtain salts that can be reused, for example in the preparation of new Pd membranes. The recovered supports are also reusable.

The embodiments disclosed herein relates to a method for producing a secondary battery material from black mass. The method for producing a secondary battery material from black mass according to one embodiment includes a roasting step of roasting black mass, a pre-extraction step of leaching a roasted black mass roasted in the roasting step with water to separate a lithium solution and a cake, a first evaporation concentration step of producing lithium carbonate crystals by evaporating and concentrating the lithium solution produced in the pre-extraction step, a leaching step of leaching the cake separated in the pre-extraction step, a first purification step of removing copper and aluminum from the leaching solution produced in the leaching step, a post-extraction step of neutralizing the solution prepared in the first purification step and separating the solution into a lithium solution and a cake containing Ni, Co, and Mn (NCM cake), a feeding step of feeding the lithium carbonate crystals produced in the first evaporation concentration step and the lithium solution prepared in the post-extraction step to a lithium hydroxide production step.

The present application relates to a process for the purification of waste materials or industrial by-products, the process comprising the steps of: a) Preparing a composition (C) by blending or mixing waste materials or industrial by-products comprising chlorine (B) with one or more materials comprising heavy metals (HM) b) Reacting (B) and (HM) by thermal treatment of (C) c) Separating evaporated heavy metal chloride compounds (HMCC) d) Obtaining a solid material after the thermal treatment step.

Disclosed is a method of producing titanium and titanium alloy nanopowder from titanium-containing slag through a shortened process. The method includes: (1) subjecting titanium-containing slag to high-temperature oxidation and enrichment and then melting to precipitate titanium-enriched slag; (2) subjecting the titanium-enriched slag to pulverization and gravity flotation; (3) carrying out secondary enrichment; (4) preparing a molten salt reaction system; (5) synthesizing titanium and salt-containing titanium alloy nanopowder by reduction reaction; and (6) vacuum filtering, pickling, washing and vacuum drying the salt-containing titanium alloy nanopowder; and then separating titanium alloy nanopowder from the molten salt. Using the present method, the titanium-containing slag can be continuously treated to produce titanium and titanium alloy nanopowder. It requires a shortened process, a simple equipment and low energy consumption. The process is environmentally friendly and produces excellent products without solids, gas or liquids that are harmful to environment.

The present invention relates to a method for selectively precipitating and extracting gold in aqueous solution by niacin. Aqueous Au.sup.3+ is precipitated selectively as it's complex from gold containing acidic mixtures by biomolecule niacin, with the formula [AuCl.sub.4].sup.[2Niacin+H].sup.+. After precipitation, the complex is separated from impurities by filtration. Recovered complex is reduced by using a reductant like sodium metabisulfite (Na.sub.2S.sub.2O.sub.5) to recover gold metal. The method is highly cost-effective, sustainable and recovers about 96.5% of gold in 2 minutes from an electronic waste composed of Au. Cu and Ni. The method is also employed to extract gold from nanomaterials waste generated in laboratories.