The recycling of plastics and metals from end-of-life NMC-type electric vehicle Lithium-ion batteries using selective froth flotation

The increase in end-of-life (EoL) Lithium-ion Batteries (LIBs) in recent times has become a major concern for the global community. Most of the research in the literature has focused on the recovery of cathode active metals from black mass. The separation of anode-cathode foils, plastics, and casing metals, which are essential parts of LIBs, remained limited. To reduce costs and maximize the recovery of valuable metals in the subsequent hydro or pyro metallurgical processes EoL LIBs need to be pre-treated accordingly. The main purpose of this study is to scrape off the black mass (or battery dust) adhering to the electrode foils as a result of gradual crushing and then to separate the plastic and copper from other metals by two-step selective flotation. The results showed that plastics with natural hydrophobicity could be removed with the help of a frother. After plastic flotation, the copper particles were floated in the presence of Aerophine 3418A, and a copper concentrate assaying 65.13% Cu was obtained with 96.4% Cu recovery at the end of the copper flotation circuit. In addition, the Al content in the material that could not float and remained in the cell was increased to approximately 77%.