RECOVERY OF PRECIOUS METALS FROM WASTE LITIUM ION BATTERIES

• Main Author: Arby, Fachri
• Format: Final Project
• Language: Indonesia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/65585
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

The use of electric vehicles (EV) is very high today. The most widely used energy storage system in EVs is the lithium ion battery (LIB) with cathode materials of nickel manganese cobalt oxide (NMC) and nickel cobalt aluminum oxide (NCA) because it offers several advantages such as large energy density, environmental friendliness, long service life, and has good efficiency. The increasing use of EVs has led to an increase in the use of LIBs. The increasing use of LIB will lead to the formation of large waste at the end of use. The NMC and NCA LIB cathodes contain metals of economic value such as nickel, cobalt and copper which take up 41.28% of the cathode. Nickel, cobalt and copper can be recovered from NMC and NCA type LIB cathode waste by carbon reduction. This research was conducted to determine the thermodynamic analysis of the recovery process of precious metals nickel, cobalt and copper from cathode waste LIB types NMC and NCA. The thermodynamic analysis of this research was carried out using the help of FactSage software version 7.3. The feed used in the carbon reduction process in this research is NMC and NCA cathode, flux, reductant and inert gas. There are four variations carried out in this study, namely variations in cathode feed, carbon, temperature, and flux. The research objective is to determine the optimum conditions (amount of carbon and temperature) that can result in high recovery of valuable metals (nickel, cobalt, copper), low concentration of impurities in the molten metal and no solids in the system. The most optimum flux variation used is the Al2O3-SiO2-CaO system with 4% Al2O3 composition. Based on the simulation results, the optimum condition for the NMC feed carbon reduction system is the amount of carbon 234 kg/1000 kg cathode feed at a minimum temperature of 1550oC. Recovery of precious metals from NCA cathode feed alone cannot be carried out because solids will form which will interfere with operations. Recovery of precious metals from NCA cathode feeds can be carried out by combining them with NMC cathodes. The optimum condition for the combined NMC and NCA carbon reduction system is the amount of carbon 76.8 kg/1000 kg cathode feed at a minimum temperature of 1600oC.