LITHIUM BATTERY RECYCLING EQUIPMENT
Lithium battery recycling is a combination of physical separation techniques and hydrometallurgy to produce a “black mass” of active material which is named as pCAM (precursor of cathode active material) used in new battery production or to obtain the valuable metals which are lithium, nickel, cobalt, and manganese for use in other industries. The plant consists of unit processes for shredding and drying, leaching and solvent extraction, and precipitation of metals could be used in concert to achieve metal recovery. The battery cell components were divided into eight parts: casing, aluminum foil, copper foil, cathode active material, graphite, separator, electrolyte solvent, and lithium.
SHREDDER AND DRYING SYSTEM
Shredder system is the first step of recycling process. Dismantled and discharged batteries are crushed to reduce particles size and increase surface area that is suitable for chemical process conditions in this step. The shredder works with different types of batteries in one stage under the vacuum and nitrogen atmosphere so that no explosion occurs.
Proses Makina’s Shredder is giving a better working environment through working minimum dust since op side and bottom side has vacuum connection to collector cyclone system.
The shredded materials are dried to recover the solvent and increase the separation efficiency under the vacuum conditions. Vacuum drying allows the operation at very low temperatures and prevent the formation of toxic gases such as HF.
PHYSICAL SEPERATION UNIT
Size separation is the simplest technique of physical separation and to obtain the black mass in the form of a fine powder from coarser components of the batteries such as current collector foils, separator, and optionally casing materials. Density separation separates materials by differences in their densities. The separator plastic utilized in LIB is commonly polyethylene and/or polypropylene and is very low in density. The electrode foils made of Al also vary greatly in their density. Magnetic separation is primarily used to remove casing material which made of iron and Ni fraction. Ultrasonic sieve is used to separate Cu/Al fraction through a vibrating screen.
The best result of physical separation is gained by using a combination of eddy current, magnetic separation, zigzag air separator and ultrasonic sieve.
CHEMICAL SEPERATION UNIT
Hydrometallurgical recycling involves dissolving the valuable cathode materials in acids and separating the constituent metals using solvent extraction. This approach is proving more popular as more of the LIB can be recycled.
The black mass which in valuable metals obtained from physical separation is leached with the strong acid in an autoclave system designed by Proses Makina with the options of atmospheric and under pressure conditions.
The lithium is directly recovered from the black mass with the less amount of chemical at more than 60% purity. If the high purity is desired to obtain, the lithium is recovered by solvent extraction method. If the aim is to produce pCAM after leaching, aluminum and copper which are remained at a small size are removed from the black mass and the solution is precipitated as hydroxide form in the co-precipitation reactor. The hydroxide form is converted to the oxide form after the calcination.
Ni,Co and Mn are loaded to the suitable solvents one by one and stripped from the organic phase in solvent extraction unit. The metals are precipitated in the reactors in the forms of hydroxides and carbonates at high purity. The sulphates of metals are produced by crystallization of the solution in the vacuum evaporator system.
Lithium Battery Recycling Equipment Price
Proses Makina is designed and developed Flexible Battery Processing Technology , also called as Flex Batt, to process various types of batteries within a single facility by serving the purpose of recycling in the sustainable environment and circular economy.
