High-temperature Processing and Recovery of Decommissioned Electrochemical Cells and Batteries

The present article describes the processing and recovery of decommissioned electrochemical cells and batteries by means of high-temperature melting in a reducing atmosphere. The experiment was carried out using two samples weighing 15 and 20 kg. CaO was used as a slag-forming additive and carbon was used as a reducing agent. The results of the experiments carried out with an 80 kVA plasma reactor showed that the decommissioned electrochemical cells and batteries may be disposed of using the plasma melting technology and the resulting product may be further recovered. The recovery rate for the non-ferrous metal of interest (cobalt) is approximately 95 %. The article also presents the chemical analyses of the formed alloy about weight of 3.7 kg in first and 5.6 kg in second experiment. The vitrified slag and fly ash analysis was also performed. The volume production of syngas was 12 m∙h with LHV from 2.7 to 3.4 MJ∙m.