Reclamation of Lithium Cobalt Oxide from Waste Lithium Ion Batteries to Be Used as Recycled Active Cathode Materials

Abstract

Waste laptop batteries (Type-Lithium ion) have been collected and manually dismantled in the current work. Active electrode materials were scraped off from the copper current collector and polyethylene separators. The aluminum current collectors were found to be severely damaged and attached with the electrode material. It was treated with NaOH later to be recovered as Al 2 O 3. The leaching of LiCoO 2 was done by 3 M HCl aided by 5% H 2 O 2 at 60°C from the scraped active electrode materials (LiCoO 2 and graphite) leaving the graphite completely. Co was precipitated as hydroxide by the addition of NaOH and later converted to Co 3 O 4 . The remaining solution was treated with saturated Na 2 CO 3 to acquire Li 2 CO 3 as crystalline precipitate with high purity. The recovery of Co and Li was 99% and 30%, respectively. Co 3 O 4 and Li 2 CO 3 were mixed in stoichiometric proportions and calcined around 950°C with air supply to achieve LiCoO 2 successfully.