Abstract:The cathode materials of waste ternary lithium-ion batteries were leached applying phosphoric acid as leaching agent and ascorbic acid as reducing agent. The effects of phosphoric acid concentration, ascorbic acid concentration, ratio of solid to liquid(S/L), temperature and reaction time on leaching rate of Li, Ni, Co and Mn from waste lithium-ion battery cathode materials were investigated. The results show that leaching rate of Li, Ni, Co and Mn is 99.65%, 97.45%, 99.51% and 98.89% respectively under the conditions including phosphoric acid concentration of 0.6 mol/L, ascorbic acid concentration of 0.1 mol/L, S/L of 20 g/L, temperature of 60 ℃, and reaction time of 60 min. The shrinking unreacted core model was used to fit the leaching kinetic data, the activation energy of Li, Ni, Co and Mn is 38.79, 44.63, 42.47 and 41.63 kJ/mol, respectively, which indicates that Li, Ni, Co and Mn is controlled by surface chemical reactions in the leaching process. Li is the easiest to leach and Ni is the most difficult to leach.