Mitsubishi Materials Corporation

Hiromichi Koizumi

Hiroshi Hayashi

Toshiaki Ueda

Ryuji Kitamura

Ryutaro Fujisawa

Shu Muraoka

Masaaki Nakao

Mayumi Iwako

Masakazu Abe

A valuable material recovery method includes a discharge step of discharging a lithium-ion battery; a thermal decomposition step of reducing a lithium compound, which is a cathode active material, into a magnetic oxide by thermally treating the lithium-ion battery after being discharged; a crushing step of crushing the lithium-ion battery, after being thermally decomposed, into fragments of a size suitable for wind sorting, allowing part of the magnetic oxide to remain in the aluminum foil; a sieving step of sieving a crushed material to separate the crushed material into an oversized product and an undersized product; a wind sorting step of separating the oversized product into a heavy product and a light product; and a magnetic sorting step of sorting and recovering the aluminum foil with a residue of the magnetic oxide, as a magnetized material, and recovering the copper foil as a non-magnetized material from the light product.

Method for recovering valuable material from used lithium-ion battery

A continuous kneading device is provided with an upper trunk () to which a powder supply tube () through which quantified powder is supplied is connected and in which the powder is blended with a fluid, and a lower trunk () concentrically connected to the bottom of the upper trunk (). The continuous kneading device continuously kneads the powder and the fluid by a first rotating kneading plate () built into the upper trunk () and a second rotating kneading plate () built into the lower trunk (), wherein surfaces of the base metals of the first and second rotating kneading plates () are covered with a coating material () for reducing friction when the powder and the fluid are kneaded together.

Continuous kneading device

A depleted UFprocessing plant including a first fluidized bed reactor configured to react depleted UFwith steam to produce UOFand hydrogen fluoride, a second fluidized bed reactor connected to the first fluidized bed reactor and configured to react the UOFwith steam to produce UO, hydrogen fluoride and oxygen, a gas cooler configured to cool the hydrogen fluoride generated in the first and second fluidized bed reactors down to 150 to 300&#xb0; C., and a fluorine fixing reactor containing granular calcium carbonate and connected to the gas cooler to receive the hydrogen fluoride cooled down to 150 to 300&#xb0; C. from the gas cooler. The fluorine fixing reactor is configured to form granular calcium fluoride from the granular calcium carbonate and the hydrogen fluoride passing through the fluorine fixing reactor.

[object Object]

The object of the present invention is to simplify the depleted UF processing plant and processing method and to prevent calcium fluoride to be a fine powder, wherein the processing plant comprises a first fluidized bed reactor for forming UO F and hydrogen fluoride by allowing depleted UF to react with steam, a second fluidized bed reactor for forming U O , hydrogen fluoride and oxygen by allowing UO F to react with steam, a gas cooler for cooling hydrogen fluoride at 150 to 300&deg; C., and a fluoride fixing reactor for forming calcium fluoride by allowing cooled hydrogen fluoride to contact calcium carbonate; and wherein the processing process comprises a dry vapor-phase reaction step for forcing UO F and hydrogen fluoride by allowing depleted UF to react with steam at a temperature of 230 to 280&deg; C., and a fluorine fixing step for forming granular calcium fluoride by allowing hydrogen fluoride generated in the dry vapor-phase reaction step to contact granular calcium carbide at a temperature of 150 to 300&deg; C.

Growing community of inventors

Iwaki, Japan

Hiromichi Koizumi