Hydrometallurgical recycling of cobalt, manganese and nickel from lithium-ion batteries black mass through ascorbic acid leaching and chemical precipitation

Recovery of secondary raw materials from end-of-life lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) is crucial to limit environmental impacts of batteries throughout the whole life cycle. LIBs’ recycling relies on pyrometallurgical and hydrometallurgical processes. Organic acid leaching has been established as a viable alternative to reduce environmental impacts associated with conventional hydrometallurgical recycling processes, which are usually based on sulfuric acid (Qin et al., 2019). Ascorbic acid has traditionally been utilized as a reducing agent, combined with other acids, or as a leaching agent by itself, with efficiencies ranging from 90% to 100% for Co, 77% to 90% for Mn, and 71% to 100% for Ni. (Lie and Liu, 2021; Mukherjee et al., 2005; Refly et al., 2020). However, past research on the recovery of Co, Mn, and Ni leached with ascorbic acid, has previously overlooked (Li et al., 2014; Refly et al., 2020). This study investigates the leaching of Co, Mn, and Ni with ascorbic acid from and the consequent recovery by chemical precipitation as oxalates. The leaching process involved black mass provided by a LIBs’ recycling facility.