Simplification of Battery Metal Flow Sheet Using Electrolysis for Selective, Direct Copper Recovery

Laboraroty and Pilot trials was completed at Chesils Electro Refinery, India to directly de-copperize the high nickel electrolyte without any IX/SX and to produce a high purity, harvestable copper cathode to low copper concentrations. The laboratory trials were conducted on 1-cell laboratory skid and pilot trial was on a 2-cell emew skid, using the commercial size emew cells. The trial results demonstrated that copper can be depleted very selectively from >35 g/L to <5 g/L using emew cells in the presence of >50 g/L nickel with no nickel deposition. The harvested copper cathode was coherent and has a purity of >99.99% without any dendrite/nodule formation or powder/cake formation, while operating at current densities in the range of 200–550 A/m^2. Further depletion of copper to lower concentrations (<50 ppm) was also demonstrated in the laboratory trials using a 3D cathode design. The pilot results confirm that extremely selective, direct copper metal production is possible from nickel streams, offering a sustainable and simpler flow sheet to recover battery metals while increasing the copper circularity.