A green lead hydrometallurgical process based on a hydrogen-lead oxide fuel cell

Junqing Pan (), Yanzhi Sun, Wei Li, James Knight and Arumugam Manthiram ()
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Junqing Pan: State Key Laboratory of Chemical Resource Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology
Yanzhi Sun: National Fundamental Research Laboratory of New Hazardous Chemicals Assessment and Accident Analysis, Beijing University of Chemical Technology
Wei Li: Electrochemical Energy Laboratory, Materials Science and Engineering Program, The University of Texas at Austin
James Knight: Electrochemical Energy Laboratory, Materials Science and Engineering Program, The University of Texas at Austin
Arumugam Manthiram: Electrochemical Energy Laboratory, Materials Science and Engineering Program, The University of Texas at Austin

Nature Communications, 2013, vol. 4, issue 1, 1-6

Abstract: Abstract The automobile industry consumed 9 million metric tons of lead in 2012 for lead-acid batteries. Recycling lead from spent lead-acid batteries is not only related to the sustainable development of the lead industry, but also to the reduction of lead pollution in the environment. The existing lead pyrometallurgical processes have two main issues, toxic lead emission into the environment and high energy consumption; the developing hydrometallurgical processes have the disadvantages of high electricity consumption, use of toxic chemicals and severe corrosion of metallic components. Here we demonstrate a new green hydrometallurgical process to recover lead based on a hydrogen-lead oxide fuel cell. High-purity lead, along with electricity, is produced with only water as the by-product. It has a >99.5% lead yield, which is higher than that of the existing pyrometallurgical processes (95–97%). This greatly reduces lead pollution to the environment.

Date: 2013
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DOI: 10.1038/ncomms3178

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