Document Type
Thesis
Date of Award
5-31-2020
Degree Name
Master of Science in Civil Engineering - (M.S.)
Department
Civil and Environmental Engineering
First Advisor
Wen Zhang
Second Advisor
Lucia Rodriguez-Freire
Third Advisor
Taha F. Marhaba
Fourth Advisor
Eon Soo Lee
Abstract
Lithium ion batteries (LIBs) are used in diverse electronic products with anticipated over 500 thousand tonnes of the waste LIBs globally in 2020. To protect the environment and also recover valuable materials such as lithium (Li) and cobalt (Co), our research employed a hydrometallurgy method and demonstrated that exposure of spent LIBs to Organic Aqua Regia (OAR) could leach Li and Co without the pre-separation of cathode from Al foil using organic solvents such as Dimethylformamide (DMF) and N-Methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP). The leaching efficiency of 99% and 94% for Li and Co were obtained with a leaching rate of 0.021, 0.167 mg·mg-1·h-1 respectively. Furthermore, our life cycle assessment (LCA) indicates that OAR could reduce 65% greenhouse gas (GHG) emission compared to extraction from natural mines or reduce 26% GHG emission compared to pyrometallurgy and hydrometallurgy processes with sulfuric acid.
Recommended Citation
Lin, Leqi, "Recovery of valuable metals from spent lithium-ion batteries using organic acids: assessment of technoeconomic feasibility" (2020). Theses. 1773.
https://digitalcommons.njit.edu/theses/1773
