The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jun. 18, 2019
Filed:
Aug. 03, 2015
Umicore, Brussels, BE;
Jeroen Heulens, Kerkom, BE;
David Van Horebeek, Tielt-Winge, BE;
Maarten Quix, Hoboken, BE;
Sybolt Brouwer, Berchem, BE;
UMICORE, Brussels, BE;
Abstract
The invention concerns a process for the separation of cobalt from lithium present in a charge comprising lithium-ion batteries or related products, comprising the steps of: smelting the charge using a bath furnace equipped with a submerged air-fed plasma torch for injecting plasma gas into the melt; defining and maintaining a bath redox potential where cobalt is reduced to the metallic state and reporting to an alloy phase, and whereby lithium is oxidized as LiO and reporting to the slag phase; decanting and separating the phases. It is characterized in that the reduction and oxidizing steps are performed simultaneously. A suitably low cobalt concentration is obtained in the slag.