Abstract: The present invention is a process of physical separation of spent lithium ion batteries to recover valuable components by using vacuum treatment to separate and recover volatile matter such as electrode binder, electrolyte solvent and salt followed by crushing and comminution to disintegrate and shred the electrolyte-depleted battery pack and reduce the size of shredded particles of enclosed components such as casing, current collectors, separator and other materials, which are subsequently separated using a series of physical separation techniques.

Abstract: The present invention is a process for directly recovering lithium and valuable transition metals such as cobalt, nickel and manganese from waste cathode and anode powder of spent lithium ion batteries into high grade products through a cascade reduction reaction scheme, followed by digestion and precipitation circuit using CO2 as media, and a series of physical separation procedures.