Page 98 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

Life Cycle Evaluation for Alkaline Battery Waste Treatment 79

• Recytec: A Swiss process that combines pyrometallurgical, hydrometal-
lurgical, and physical treatments. It is used for recycling all types of por-
table batteries and also fluorescent lamps and Hg-containing tubes. This
process does not recycle Ni-Cd batteries. The investment for this process
is smaller than that for the Sumitomo process, but the operating costs are
higher (Frenay et al., 1994; Jordi, 1995; Ammann, 1995).
• Atech: A process based on physical treatment of scrap batteries, this has
a lower cost than hydrometallurgical or pyrometallurgical processes. It is
used for recycling all portable batteries.
• Snam–Savam: A French process for recycling Ni-Cd batteries, totally based
on a pyrometallurgical method (Schweers et al., 1992).
• Sab Nife: A Swedish process for recycling Ni-Cd batteries, entirely based
on pyrometallurgy (Landskrona et al., 1983; Anulf, 1990).
• Inmetco: A North American process, initially developed by the International
Nickel Company (INCO) with the objective of recovering dusts from
electric arc furnaces. It can also be used to recover metallic wastes from
other processes, and Ni-Cd batteries can be included as one such waste
(Hanewald et al., 1991, 1992).
• Waelz: A pyrometallurgical process to recover metals from steelmak-
ing dusts. The process uses a rotary furnace and recovers metals such as
Zn, Pb, and Cd from steelmaking wastes (Egocheaga-Garcia et al., 1997;
Moser et al., 1992).
• TNO: A hydrometallurgical Dutch process for battery recycling. This
process developed two recycling alternatives, one for Zn-C and alkaline
household batteries and the other for Ni-Cd batteries. The alternative for
household batteries was not commercially implemented (Hurd, 1993).
• Accurec: A German pyrometallurgical process to recycle batteries, in
which Ni-Cd batteries are treated separately (ALD Vacuum Technologies
AG, 2001).

The present chapter is a case study applied to a hydrometallurgy process.
Recycling through hydrometallurgy basically consists of acid or base leaching of
scrap to bring the metals into solution. Once in solution, metals can be recovered by
precipitation, altering the pH of the solution, adding some reaction agent, or elec-
trolysis. The solution can also be separated by solvent extraction, using an organic
solvent that binds to the metallic ion, separating the metal from the solution. The
metal can then be recovered by electrolysis or by precipitation (Xue et al., 1992;
Lyman and Palmer, 1994; Contestabile et al., 1999).

5.2 STRUCTURE OF AN LCA
According to the ISO 14140-44 standard of 2006, an LCA study shall include the
following four phases:

1. Definition of the study’s objectives and boundaries of the system: this is a
preliminary phase, defining the objectives that the LCA has to reach.