CN-115989103-B - Alloy powder, method for producing same, and method for recovering valuable metal

Abstract

The invention provides an alloy powder which is easy to dissolve nickel and cobalt in acid and can be leached stably, a method for producing the alloy powder which can be leached stably at low cost, and a method for recovering valuable metals by using the method. The alloy powder of the present invention contains copper (Cu), nickel (Ni) and cobalt (Co) as constituent components, wherein the alloy powder has a 50% cumulative diameter (D50) of 30-85 [ mu ] m in a volume particle size distribution, and the alloy powder has an oxygen content of 0.01-1.00 mass%.

Inventors

• FU JIANLIANG

Assignees

• 住友金属矿山株式会社

Dates

Publication Date

20260505

Application Date

20210818

Priority Date

20200828

Claims (8)

1. 1. An alloy powder, wherein, Comprises copper Cu, nickel Ni and cobalt Co as constituent components, The 50% cumulative diameter D50 in the volume particle size distribution of the alloy powder is 35 μm or more and 55 μm or less, The 10% cumulative diameter D10, 50% cumulative diameter D50 and 90% cumulative diameter D90 in the volume particle size distribution of the alloy powder satisfy the relationship of 2.50≤D 90-D10/D50≤3.00, The oxygen content of the alloy powder is 0.01 to 0.60 mass%.
2. 2. The alloy powder according to claim 1, wherein, The alloy powder has a composition containing 24.0-80.0% by mass of Cu, 0.1-15.0% by mass of Co, 10.0-50.0% by mass of Ni, 0.01-10.0% by mass of Fe, 0.01-5.0% by mass of Mn, and the balance being unavoidable impurities.
3. 3. A method for producing the alloy powder according to claim 1 or 2, wherein, The method comprises the following steps: Preparing an alloy raw material containing copper Cu, nickel Ni, and cobalt Co as constituent components; a step of heating and melting the alloy raw material to form an alloy melt, and A step of forming alloy powder by cooling the alloy melt by causing the alloy melt to fall in a chamber of an atomizing device and spraying water to the falling alloy melt, In the step of forming the alloy powder, the pressure of the water to be sprayed is set to 6MPa to 20MPa, and the mass ratio of the sprayed amount of water to the falling amount of the alloy melt, that is, the specific water ratio, is set to 5.0 times to 7.0 times, In the step of forming the alloy powder, the amount of the alloy melt falling is set to be 10 kg/min to 75 kg/min.
4. 4. The method of claim 3, wherein, In the step of forming the alloy powder, the temperature of the sprayed water is set to be 2 ℃ to 35 ℃.
5. 5. The method of claim 3 or 4, wherein, In the step of forming the alloy melt, the temperature of the alloy melt is set to be 1430 ℃ or higher and 1590 ℃ or lower.
6. 6. The method of claim 3 or 4, wherein, The alloy raw material is a raw material from a waste lithium ion battery.
7. 7. A method for producing the alloy powder according to claim 1 or 2, wherein, The method comprises the following steps: Preparing a waste lithium ion battery as a raw material; A step of heating and melting the raw material to form slag and an alloy containing copper Cu, nickel Ni and cobalt Co; A step of separating the slag and recovering the alloy as an alloy raw material; a step of heating and melting the alloy raw material to form an alloy melt, and A step of forming alloy powder by cooling the alloy melt by causing the alloy melt to fall in a chamber of an atomizing device and spraying water to the falling alloy melt, In the step of forming the alloy powder, the pressure of the water to be sprayed is set to 6MPa to 20MPa, and the mass ratio of the sprayed amount of water to the falling amount of the alloy melt, that is, the specific water ratio, is set to 5.0 times to 7.0 times, In the step of forming the alloy powder, the amount of the alloy melt falling is set to be 10 kg/min to 75 kg/min.
8. 8. A method for recovering valuable metals, wherein the valuable metals are Ni, co and Cu, Comprising the step of producing an alloy powder by the method according to any one of claims 3 to 7, and And a step of subjecting the produced alloy powder to an acid solvent-based leaching treatment, and selectively dissolving nickel (Ni) and cobalt (Co) in the acid solvent from the alloy powder to thereby separate copper (Cu).

Description

Alloy powder, method for producing same, and method for recovering valuable metal Technical Field The present invention relates to an alloy powder, a method for producing the same, and a method for recovering valuable metals. Background In recent years, lithium ion batteries have been popular as lightweight and large-output batteries. A lithium ion battery is known to have a structure in which a negative electrode material, a positive electrode material, a separator, and an electrolyte are enclosed in an outer can. Here, the outer can is made of a metal such as iron (Fe) or aluminum (Al). The negative electrode material is composed of a negative electrode active material (graphite or the like) fixed to a negative electrode current collector (copper foil or the like). The positive electrode material is composed of a positive electrode active material (lithium nickelate, lithium cobaltate, etc.) fixed to a positive electrode current collector (aluminum foil, etc.). The spacer is made of a porous resin film of polypropylene or the like. The electrolyte solution contains an electrolyte such as lithium hexafluorophosphate (LiPF 6). One of the main uses of lithium ion batteries is hybrid cars or electric cars. Therefore, it is expected that the lithium ion battery to be mounted will be largely discarded according to the life cycle of the automobile. In addition, there are lithium ion batteries that are discarded as defective products in the production. Such a used battery or a defective battery (hereinafter, a "waste lithium ion battery") generated during production is required to be reused as a resource. As a method for recycling, a dry smelting process has been proposed in which all waste lithium ion batteries are melted in a high-temperature furnace (melting furnace). The dry type smelting process is a method of subjecting crushed waste lithium ion batteries to a melting treatment, and separating and recovering valuable metals such as cobalt (Co), nickel (Ni), and copper (Cu) from metals having low added values such as iron (Fe) and aluminum (Al) by utilizing the difference in oxygen affinity between the valuable metals and metals. In this method, a metal having a low added value is oxidized as slag as much as possible, and a valuable metal is recovered as an alloy while the oxidation is suppressed as much as possible. The recovered alloy mainly contains copper (Cu), nickel (Ni) and cobalt (Co). If the valuable metals (Cu, ni, co) can be separated and recovered from the alloy in the dry smelting process, the recovery can be performed at low cost. As such a dry smelting process, a method of charging a recovered alloy into a copper smelting process is considered. However, the recycled alloy typically contains a specified amount of iron (Fe). Therefore, if the recovered alloy is put into a copper smelting process, cobalt (Co) is distributed into the oxide together with iron (Fe), and as a result, it is difficult to recover cobalt (Co) as an elemental substance. Accordingly, methods for recovering valuable metals from recovered alloys by a wet smelting process are being studied. Specifically, the recovered alloy (copper-nickel-cobalt alloy) is subjected to an acid leaching treatment, whereby nickel (Ni) and cobalt (Co) are dissolved in a solvent. Then, the solution containing nickel and cobalt is separated from copper as a dissolution residue. Then, copper, nickel, and cobalt are recovered by conventional smelting processes. For example, patent document 1 discloses a method for recovering valuable metals including nickel and cobalt from waste batteries of lithium ion batteries including nickel and cobalt. The recovery method includes a melting step of melting lithium ion waste batteries to obtain a molten material, an oxidation step of oxidizing the molten material or the waste batteries, a slag separation step of separating slag from the molten material and recovering an alloy containing valuable metals, and a dephosphorization step of separating phosphorus contained in the alloy (claim 1 of patent document 1). Patent document 1 discloses that an alloy obtained through a dephosphorization step is subjected to alloy shot blasting to form a granular material, and after the alloy is subjected to acid dissolution, the alloy is subjected to element separation by steps of iron removal, copper separation and recovery, nickel/cobalt separation, nickel recovery, and cobalt recovery, and valuable metals are recovered (patent document 1 [0047] to [0053 ]). Prior art literature Patent literature Patent document 1 Japanese patent publication No. 5853585. Disclosure of Invention Problems to be solved by the invention As described above, although a method of recovering valuable metals from a recovered alloy (copper-nickel-cobalt alloy) by a wet smelting process has been proposed, there is room for improvement in the conventional method. That is, general copper-nickel-cobalt alloys have high corrosion resistance. Therefore, depe