As a clean energy source without pollution during use, lead-acid batteries have received close attention. However, lead-acid batteries contain a large amount of polluting heavy metals, and random disposal will pollute the environment and affect the ecological balance. In industry, the recovery of scrap lead paste (SLP) is usually treated by pyrotechnics, but it consumes a lot of energy and also produces pollutants such as sulfur dioxide and lead dust. In view of the existing problems, finding new recycling processes has become a research hotspot. Deep eutectic solvents (DESs) are a new generation of green solvents and have received more and more attention in recent years. Because of their good thermal stability and wide electrochemical window, DESs are widely used in the fields of metal extraction and material preparation. In this work, the recycling of scrap lead paste to prepare lead powders by electrolysis is discussed in choline chloride-ethylene glycol deep eutectic solvent (ChCl-EG DES). Firstly, the phase composition of the scrap lead paste is analyzed by XRD, and the quantitative analysis of the scrap lead paste using Jade software shows that it mainly exists in the form of lead dioxide with a small amount of lead sulfate at the same time. And then, the electrochemical behavior of lead ion in 30 g/L SLP+ChCl-EG solution is investigated by cyclic voltammetry. The phase composition and microscopic morphology of the deposit product at different temperatures are examine using XRD and SEM techniques. The experimental results show that when scrap lead paste is added, Pb(IV) can be reduced preferential to Pb(II) due to the reducibility of ChCl-EG DES. Cyclic voltammetry indicates that the reduction of scrap lead paste to metal lead is a quasi-reversible process in ChCl-EG DES. The constant voltage deposition experiment show that when the temperature rises from 323 K to 363 K, the current efficiency rises from 67.26% to 96.06% and the specific energy consumption decreases from 961.57 kWh/t to 673.28 kWh/t. XRD and SEM results demonstrate that the deposit products obtained at different temperatures are pure metallic lead powders and their microscopic morphology are mainly rod-shaped and slight acicular.
HUANG Hao-Ming
,
RU Juan-Jian
,
HUA Yi-Xin
,
GENG Xiao
,
ZHANG Wen-Wen
,
CHENG Ming-Qiang
,
WANG Dao-Xiang
. Recycling of scrap lead paste to prepare lead powder by high efficiency electrolysis in choline chloride-ethylene glycol deep eutectic solvent[J]. The Chinese Journal of Process Engineering, 2023
, 23(1)
: 107
-114
.
DOI: 10.12034/j.issn.1009-606X.221422