The amount of waste Li-Ion Batteries (LIBs) is significantly growing. Therefore, scholars and industries are exploring efficient ways to recover their valuable elements. Meanwhile, steel production generates Fe-rich slag, which is often sold for construction purposes without fully utilizing its potential metal content. Reusing this slag in LIB recycling allows simultaneous recovery of valuable elements from both waste LIBs and steel slag. This study investigates the pyrometallurgical recycling of Black Mass (BM) from a mixture of spent LIBs in the presence of Fe-rich slag (set based on Electric Arc Furnace (EAF) slag), with a focus on the evaporation of Li and F, the critical volatile elements in the BM, at 1500 °C. The effects of basicity (B2), MgO content, and flux amount on Li and F evaporation were studied using a central composite experimental design, showing that while the effects of MgO content and flux amount were insignificant, B2 had a linear effect on Li and a quadratic effect on F evaporation. Thermodynamic and viscosity calculations suggest that higher B2 improves ion mobility, facilitating the evaporation mechanism. However, for F, its dual role at different B2 levels leads to an evaporation trend different from that of Li. Keeping B2 within a midrange seems to balance Li evaporation efficiency while limiting F evaporation.

The most prominent solutions are the establishment of a circular economy by recirculating the iron-rich residues from steelworks and the adoption of hydrogen as a clean reducing agent to mitigate fossil CO2 emission. One such residue is mill scale, which is generated during steelmaking, casting, and rolling processes. However, the fine particles and easy reoxidation of the mill scale make it difficult to be used directly in iron and steel production without proper compaction. This paper aims to demonstrate the feasibility of mill scale briquetting using organic binders to meet the requirements of hydrogen-based direct reduction. The study will investigate the influence of binder type, binder dosage, moisture content, and compaction pressure on the briquetting process and the briquettes quality. Moreover, the reducibility of optimized briquettes will be examined by hydrogen at 900 °C using a thermogravimetric analyzer coupled with a quadrupole mass spectroscopy (TGA-QMS). The optimal combination for achieving the best mechanical strength and reducibility was a briquette produced with 1% Alcotac® CB6, 1% KemPel, and 2.5% moisture content, compressed at a pressure of 125 kN.

Li-ion batteries (LIBs) are widely used nowadays. Because of their limited lifetimes and resource constraints in manufacturing them, it is essential to develop effective recycling routes to recover their valuable elements. This study focuses on the pyrometallurgical recycling of black mass (BM) from a mixture of different LIBs. In this study, the high-temperature behavior of two types of mixed BM is initially examined. Subsequently, the effect of mechanical activation on the BM reduction kinetics is investigated. Finally, hematite is added to the BM to first be reduced by the excess graphite in the BM and second to form an Fe-based alloy containing Co and Ni. This study demonstrates that mechanical activation does not necessarily affect the kinetics of BM high-temperature behavior. Furthermore, it demonstrates that alloy-making by the addition of hematite is a successful method to simultaneously utilize the graphite in the BM and recover Co and Ni, regardless of the LIB type.

Today, Li-ion batteries (LIBs) play a vital role in reducing the consumption of fossil fuels. With the increasingproduction of LIBs, it is crucial to consider their recycling after reaching their end-of-life. Pyrometallurgy is a technique that can be employed for the recycling of LIBs, which deals with the formation of three phases: melt, slag, and gas. In-situ alloying by the addition of hematite to the LIB black mass was studied previously by the authors. The effect of slag composition in terms of CaO:SiO2 ratio on the aforementioned system in terms of the melting, slag/metal separation, and Li/F evaporation behavior has been investigated in this work. The CaO:SiO2 mass ratios of 0:100, 25:75, 50:50, 75:25, and 100:0 were tested in that system at a temperature of 1450 °C. Thermodynamic modeling with FactSage 8.0 supported the experimental work. From this qualitative study, it can be anticipated that by increasing the SiO2 amount, metallics coalesce more effectively, the probability of metal/slag separation increases, and Li evaporation is enhanced. The addition of CaO may result in the entrapment of Li within the Ca silicate structure and decrease its vapor partial pressure. Thermodynamic modeling revealed a consistent trend in the distribution of Li and F as the CaO:SiO2 ratio changed, suggesting the potential formation of gaseous compounds such as LiF.

The steel industry accounts, according to the International Energy Agency, for ~6.7% of global CO2 emissions, and the major portion of its contribution is from steelmaking via the blast furnace (BF) route. In the short term, a significant reduction in fossil CO2 emissions can be achieved through the introduction of bio-coal into the BF as part of cold bonded briquettes, by injection, or as part of coke. The use of bio-coal-containing residue briquettes was previously demonstrated in industrial trials in Sweden, whereas bio-coal injection was only tested on a pilot scale or in one-tuyere tests. Therefore, industrial trials replacing part of the pulverized coal (PC) were conducted. It was concluded that the grinding, conveying, and injection of up to 10% of charcoal (CC) with PC can be safely achieved without negative impacts on PC injection plant or BF operational conditions and without losses of CC with the dust. From a process point of view, higher addition is possible, but it must be verified that grinding and conveying is feasible. Through an experimentally validated computational fluid flow model, it was shown that a high moisture content and the presence of oversized particles delay devolatilization and ignition, lowering the combustion efficiency. By using CC with similar heating value to PC, compositional variations in the injected blend are not critical.

The transformation from traditional iron- and steelmaking technologies to green H2-based new technologies will require an improvement in the quality and purity of iron ore burden materials. Iron ore pellets are essential inputs for producing direct reduced iron (DRI), but the conventional binders, used in iron ore pelletizing, introduce gangue oxides to the DRI and consequently increase the slag generation and energy consumption in the steelmaking unit. Partial and/or full replacement of the traditional binders with novel organic binders would significantly contribute to improving the process efficiency, particularly in the next-generation H2-based direct reduction technology. This study illustrates the feasibility of pelletizing magnetite iron ore concentrate using four organic binders: KemPel, Alcotac CS, Alcotac FE16, and CMC, in comparison to bentonite as a reference. The study explores the influence of binder type, binder dosage, and moisture content on the characteristics and properties of the pellets. The efficiency of binders was characterized by the moisture content, drop number test, cold compression strength, and H2 reduction of pellets. For dry pellets, CMS was superior among other binders including bentonite in developing dry strength. After firing, the pellets produced by the partial replacement of bentonite with 0.1 wt.% KemPel demonstrate a performance nearly identical to the reference pellets. While the complete replacement of bentonite with organic binder shows a lower performance of fired pellets compared to the reference, it may still be suitable for use in DR shaft furnaces. The cold-bonded pellets demonstrate a superior reduction rate compared to fired pellets.

The transformations of low-grade manganese ore were investigated during roasting in the air at different temperatures up to 1200 degrees C. The transformations were followed up by XRD and TGA-DTA. Moreover, the morphology and magnetic properties were determined by SEM and VSM. It was observed that MnO2 transformed to the lower oxide Mn5O8 at 500 degrees C and then to bixbyite (Mn2O3) at 600 degrees C. Finally, the bixbyite decomposed to hausmannite (Mn3O4) at 800 degrees C. Increasing the roasting temperature to 900 degrees C induced a reaction between hematite and hausmannite and led to the formation of a small amount of solid solution of the ferrite spinel MnFe2O4. Further increase in temperature to 1000 degrees C led to the formation of a solid solution of braunite (Mn7SiO12) which decomposed to rhodonite (MnSiO3) at 1200 degrees C. The magnetic susceptibility of the original ore gradually increased with the roasting temperature, from 0.119 x 10(-3) at ambient temperature to a maximum value of 80 x 10(-3) at 1200 degrees C.

This research work focuses on the practicality of using organic binders for the briquetting of pellet fines. The developed briquettes were evaluated in terms of mechanical strength and reduction behavior with hydrogen. A hydraulic compression testing machine and thermogravimetric analysis were incorporated into this work to investigate the mechanical strength and reduction behavior of the produced briquettes. Six organic binders, namely Kempel, lignin, starch, lignosulfonate, Alcotac CB6, and Alcotac FE14, in addition to sodium silicate, were tested for the briquetting of pellet fines. The highest mechanical strength was achieved using sodium silicate, Kempel, CB6, and lignosulfonate. The best combination of binder to attain the required mechanical strength even after 100% reduction was found to be a combination of 1.5 wt.% of organic binder (either CB6 or Kempel) with 0.5 wt.% of inorganic binder (sodium silicate). Upscaling using an extruder gave propitious results in the reduction behavior, as the produced briquettes were highly porous and attained pre-requisite mechanical strength.

Pyrometallurgy is a popular industrial method that is employed in the recovery of valuable elements from black mass (BM), which is produced by pretreatment of Li-ion batteries. This method struggles with some downsides, such as the incineration of graphite and high energy consumption. In this study, the goal is to utilize graphite in the BM to produce a master alloy in an attempt to decrease the energy input requirement. To achieve this, metal oxides (Fe₂O₃ and CuO) are added to the BM to produce an Fe/Cu-based alloy containing Co/Ni as alloying elements. Mechanical activation is also employed to decrease the energy requirement and to increase the amount of metal oxide that can be reduced by the graphite in the BM. The results revealed that it is possible to produce the aforementioned alloys, the efficiency of which can be improved by applying mechanical activation. After 1 h of milling, the required heat flow for producing Fe- and Cu-based alloys is lowered for ⁓10 and ⁓25 kWh, respectively. Plus, the direct CO₂ emission decreases for 13-17% in the iron system and 43-46% in the copper system.