Development of a Physiochemical Model Combined with an Engineering Model for Predicting Solvent Extraction Performances Within the Context of Lithium-Ion Battery Recycling

Solvent extraction is a mature technology that is used in many industrial applications for the extraction and/or purification of metals contained in aqueous solutions. Such a technology could be advantageously utilized to produce high-grade salts of lithium, cobalt, nickel, and manganese from mine or lithium-ion battery recycling. However, nickel–cobalt–manganese separation is not easy by means of commercial extractants. Such a separation could be achieved providing that process operation would be always optimized. Modelling tools could help achieve this goal. This paper presents the development of a global model implementing a physicochemical model and an engineering model, which can predict the influence of pH, flowrates, and mixers-settlers arrangement on the performances of liquid–liquid extraction.