Dry chlorination of spent nickel metal hydride battery waste for water leaching of battery metals and rare earth elements

An efficient leaching process was developed for nickel, cobalt, and the rare earth elements (REEs) from spent nickel metal hydride (NiMH) battery waste. The process involves dry chlorination with ammonium chloride in low temperature to produce water-soluble chlorinated compounds, followed by simple water leaching. The factors affecting the conversion and solubilization were studied, including the amount of ammonium chloride, residence time and temperature in dry chlorination, and solid to liquid ratio, time and temperature in water leaching. As a result, the dry chlorination process was found to produce ammonium and chloride containing products, depending on the temperature of the process: …