Patent ID: 8616475

Claim:
A process for the reclaiming of copper, aluminum, carbon and cathode material from spent lithium ion batteries having a lithium metal oxide cathode material which comprises the steps of; a) crushing spent lithium ion batteries under an aqueous spray to form a slurry mixture; b) screening the slurry mixture through at least one mesh filter to recover the coarser pieces of aluminum and copper to form a screened slurry containing solids; c) recovering the solids from the screened slurry by filtration to obtain a filter cake; d) drying the filter cake from step c) to obtain a dried cake and heating the dried cake at a temperature of 400-800Â° C. to obtain a heated dried filter cake; e) forming an aqueous slurry of the heated dried filter cake from step d) and passing the aqueous slurry into a froth or flotation apparatus to generate a froth or foam containing carbon; f) filtering the froth or foam from step e) to recover carbon, and g) recovering a cathode material from the bottom of said froth or flotation apparatus of step e).