Abstract:Copper smelting acidic wastewater was used to leach cathode material of waste ternary lithium-ion batteries. The influences of leaching temperature, initial concentration of H2SO4 in acidic wastewater and the mixing speed on leaching rate of Co were investigated. The results indicate that the leaching rate of Co in cathode material is 99.12% under the conditions including leaching time of 150 min, leaching temperature of 363 K, ratio of liquid to solid of 12.5, dosage of reductant starch of 10 g/L, and initial concentration of H2SO4 in acidic wastewater of 1.5 mol/L. The unreacted shrinking core model was used to analyze the kinetics of Co in the process of reduction leaching. The results show that the leaching process of Co is controlled by the mixture of internal diffusion and interfacial chemical reaction with the apparent activation energy of 23.657 kJ/mol, and the kinetic equation is as follows: 1-(1-x)^(1/3)+β[1-2/3 x-(1-x)^(2/3) ]=4.5243C^1.29211 V^1.60337 [exp?(23657/RT)]t