Precipitation

Example

See it in the plant

1. Precipitate: alkali is added to 5544 kg of solution until manganese, cobalt and nickel come out together as hydroxides.
2. Filter: the solid is the mixed hydroxide precipitate, 7664 kg dry. It still has to be refined before precursor production.
3. Pass on: lithium stays dissolved; 586 kg of raffinate goes to lithium recovery, and 127 kg is bled off to keep sodium and sulfate in check.

Use in Lemonergy

Distinguish recovered material from a qualified product.

This is a reference concept. No executable Lemonergy block has been verified for this term.

Connected concepts

Related concepts from the knowledge graph. Connections show context, not cause and effect. Hover or focus a linked term for its definition.

Crystallisation

Evaporating a purified solution until a battery-grade salt crystallises out — nickel sulfate, cobalt sulfate, lithium hydroxide — ready to be sold back to precursor and cathode plants.

Lithium recovery

Getting the lithium back, which smelting loses to slag and older hydrometallurgical flowsheets left until last at low yield. Newer routes take it out first — by roasting or carbonating black mass and washing out a lithium salt — before the other metals are leached.

Mixed hydroxide precipitate

A single solid of nickel, cobalt and manganese hydroxides, precipitated together from a purified solution by raising the pH. It is simpler to make than separate sulfates and is traded as an intermediate, but it must be refined again before precursor production.

Precursor cathode active material

The mixed nickel–manganese–cobalt hydroxide made by co-precipitation from metal sulfate solutions, before lithium is added. Its particle size and shape are set here and carried through to the finished NMC powder.

Solvent extraction

Separating metals in the leach liquor by contacting it with an organic phase carrying an extractant that picks up one metal at a time, controlled by pH: manganese, then cobalt, then nickel, leaving lithium in the water. It is how recyclers reach battery-grade sulfates.

References & further reading

Technical references

1. Recycling lithium-ion batteries from electric vehicles

   Gavin Harper et al. · Nature · 2019

   Technical reference · Reuse, disassembly and mechanical, hydro-, pyro- and direct recycling routes.

Further reading on this topic

These sources provide broader context; they are not presented as citations for every statement in this entry.

2. Lithium-Ion Battery Recycling

   U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

   Topic background · Battery construction, recycling routes and U.S. waste-management context.