Hydrometallurgical process for recovery and synthesis of LiCoO2 from spent lithium-ion batteries

The recycling and synthesizing LiCoO₂ by hydrometallurgical process from lithium-ion batteries was investigated in this paper. The organic solvent was used to dissolve the PVDF agglomerant from cobalt lithium membrane to separate aluminum foil. The results of acid leaching experiments show that the appropriate leaching system are sulfuric acid and hydrogen peroxide and the best condition was 30% H₂O₂ 1.4 ml/g, temperature 80°C, and time 120 min, which the cobalt leaching efficiency is the highest. Gelatinous precursor was synthesized by wet method. When the precursor is calcined at 450°C for 4h, purely crystalline LiCoO₂ can be successfully obtained.