Spent Lithium-Ion Battery Recycling Using Flotation Technology: Effect of Material Heterogeneity on Separation Performance

In this study, two types of recycling scenarios are assessed for spent battery materials using froth flotation. The first is for a single cathode chemistry and would be considered as the most likely scenario for a large battery manufacturer, who takes back their own batteries for reprocessing. The second scenario is for mixed cathode chemistry, and this would be the most likely scenario for regional reprocessing. The mixed spent battery materials assessed in this work were sourced from such an industrial recycling operation in Australia. Good results were obtained for both recycling scenarios. The anode recovery and anode grade in the final concentrate for both materials evaluated were for the single spent battery material 80.1% and 90.3%, respectively, and for the mixed spent battery material, 77.4% and 82.0%, respectively. For the final tailings, the cathode grades for both materials tested were 93.9% and 87.1%, respectively, with the lower grade for the mixed spent battery attributed to the high content of impurities in the original material. These results highlight the importance of the preprocessing ahead of the flotation process. The results confirm froth flotation as a feasible technique that can be used to achieve the bulk of the separation.