Abstract:The selective leaching process of lithium, nickel, and cobalt from spent ternary lithium batteries by ammonium bicarbonate-reductant system was studied. The effects of leaching temperature, concentration of ammonium bicarbonate, type and concentration of reductant, solid-to-liquid ratio, and leaching time on leaching rate of valuable metals were investigated. The selective leaching mechanism was investigated by XRD, SEM-EDS and FT-IR characterization methods. The results show that the leaching rate of Li, Ni, and Co is 96.86%, 96.36% and 93.43%, respectively, while manganese is almost never leached under the conditions including leaching temperature of 80 ℃, leaching time of 2.5 h, ammonium bicarbonate concentration of 2.5 mol/L, solid-liquid ratio of 50 g/L, and reductant sodium sulfite concentration of 0.6 mol/L. The ammonium bicarbonate-ammonium sulfite reduction system can achieve efficient and selective recovery of lithium, nickel and cobalt from waste ternary lithium battery materials.