YU Yezhe, TANG Ping, CHEN Li
Taking the active material of waste lithium battery cathode as the research object, a mild citric acid leaching system is selected to investigate the effects of acid concentration, reducing agent, solid-liquid ratio, reaction temperature, reaction time and other factors on cobalt leaching rate. Furthermore, the thermodynamics and the kinetics of cobalt leaching are analyzed. In terms of the selection of reducing agents, both the subsequent recovery of cobalt in the leaching solution (synthesis of cobalt ferrite) and the use of iron based reducing agents have achieved efficient cobalt leaching, while providing an ion foundation for subsequent cobalt recovery. Experimental results show that under the conditions of reaction temperature of 80 ℃, initial acid concentration of 1.25 mol/L, addition of reduced iron powder of 6.67 mmol/g, and solid-liquid ratio of 40 g/L, cobalt leaching rate can reach 99.95% after 120 minutes of leaching. In the range of pH<6.80 and (0.65~1.61)V>E>-0.31 V, reduction helps to accelerate the leaching of cobalt from the positive electrode active material of lithium batteries. The cobalt leaching process can be described by an unreacted core contraction model without a solid product layer. The reaction rate is controlled by a combination of surface chemical reactions and diffusion. The calculated apparent activation energy is 24.55 kJ/mol, and the expression for the prediction model of cobalt leaching rate in this system is obtained.