Retired power lithium-ion batteries, take the road of gradient utilization, is the gradient utilization and then material recovery; direct material recovery is the batch is too small, no history can be found, safety monitoring failed and so on.

The pursuit of economic efficiency is the driving force behind the behavior of companies and society. According to reason, the gradient utilization, to the lithium-ion battery can be used to reduce the value to the maintenance cost of the following, and then do the raw material recovery, is the battery value is maximized. However, the actual situation is that the early power lithium batteries are poorly traceable, with uneven quality and models. Early battery gradient utilization risk, the cost of eliminating the risk is high, so it can be said that, in the early stage of power lithium battery recycling, the probability of the battery's destination to raw material recycling.

2, positive pole material valuable metal extraction method

The current said power lithium ion battery recycling, in fact, does not do the whole battery on all kinds of materials comprehensive recycling and reuse. The types of cathode materials include: lithium cobaltate, lithium manganate, lithium ternary, lithium iron phosphate and so on.

The cost of battery cathode material occupies more than 1/3 of the cost of a single battery, and because the negative electrode is currently using graphite and other carbon materials, lithium titanate Li4Ti5O12 and silicon carbon negative electrode Si/C application is less, so the current battery recycling technology is important for the recovery of the battery cathode material.

The recycling methods of used lithium-ion batteries are important in three categories: physical method, chemical method and biological method. Compared with other methods, hydrometallurgy is considered to be a more ideal recycling method because of its low energy consumption, high recycling efficiency and high product purity.

3、Hydrometallurgy

Hydrometallurgy is a method to selectively dissolve the cathode materials in used lithium-ion batteries with suitable chemical reagents and separate the metal elements in the leachate. The hydrometallurgical process is more suitable for the recovery of used lithium-ion batteries with relatively single chemical composition, and it can be used alone or together with pyrometallurgy, with low requirements for equipment and low processing costs, which is a very mature processing method suitable for the recovery of small and medium-sized used lithium-ion batteries.

4、Pyrometallurgy

Pyrometallurgy, also known as incineration or dry metallurgy, is a high-temperature incineration to remove the organic binder in the electrode material, and at the same time make the metal and its compounds in it undergo redox reaction, and then recycle the metal and its compounds with low boiling point in the form of condensation, and the metal in the slag is recycled by sieving, pyrolysis, magnetic separation or chemical methods. Pyrometallurgy does not require high components of raw materials and is suitable for large-scale processing of more complex lithium-ion batteries.