Lithium and Cobalt Recovery from Lithium-Ion Battery Waste via Functional Ionic Liquid Extraction for Effective Battery Recycling

Sustainable management of spent lithium-ion batteries, LIBs, is an urgent and critical challenge due to the number of such devices reaching the end-of-life. Recycling can offer a path for the recovery of valuable raw materials such as lithium and cobalt, whose supply is critical. Thus, it is mandatory to develop efficient ways for the selective recovery of Li and Co from the cathode degradation processes. In this study the most updated organic acids-based processes for the degradation of LiCoO2, the most common LIBs cathode, is explored to obtain a leached solution containing Li and Co. The possibility to exploit the 3-methyl-1-octylimidazolium thenoyltrifluoroacetone, Omim-TTA, ionic liquid was demonstrated to efficiently separate Li and Co. In particular it was possible to recover >70 % of Li and separate it from Co using this ionic liquid, independently from the organic acid used for the leaching procedure and adding EDTA to the aqueous phase. The quantification was carried out through ICP analysis; the recovering of the unaltered ionic liquid was also demonstrated, to further increase the global sustainability of the process.