Electrolytic purification of metal copper recovery from waste lithium batteries

Abstract

Battery disposal is a subject of high environmental concerns, and requires studies on their recovery and reuse to minimize waste of non-renewable resources of raw materials. In many countries there is no proper disposal and collection of these materials, as there is no legislation on battery recycling. Since the battery anode contains a large proportion of copper, this work investigates copper purification from a battery recovery process. The methodology applies the electrolytic refining technique of copper electrodeposition, after opening the electrode through acid leaching. Sixty-three waste batteries were collected for this research, totalling 494.473 g. Of this mass 98.509 g corresponds to copper-rich anode, which 19.66% is equivalent to recoverable copper. The process here applied allowed for recovery of 99.61% of the recoverable copper through natural metal oxide deposition in a copper plate. Final analysis of the plate shows 70.5% copper, the remaining composition being oxygen, carbon, sulphur and chlorine contaminant. The main novelty of this paper is the reduced amount of sulphuric acid used in the lixiviation process.