The invention discloses a method for recovering a
lithium element in a retired ternary
lithium battery positive
electrode material, and relates to the technical field of battery
recovery, and the method comprises the following steps: S1, uniformly mixed carbon
powder and ternary positive
electrode recovery powder are placed in a reduction furnace, and a carbon thermal reduction reaction is carried out under the protection of a
nitrogen atmosphere to obtain a reduced material; s2, the reduction material, pure water and
grinding balls are put into a pressurized ball milling tank,
carbon dioxide is introduced, ball milling is conducted in the high-pressure environment of 2-5 MPa, and ball milling
slurry is obtained; s3, carrying out
solid-liquid separation on the ball-milled
slurry to obtain a
lithium extraction
leachate; s4, the lithium extraction
leachate is subjected to
impurity removal, concentration and
thermal decomposition, and
lithium carbonate crystals are obtained; and S5, washing,
drying and crushing the
lithium carbonate crystals to obtain the battery-grade
lithium carbonate. According to the method disclosed by the invention, lithium is extracted by matching
carbon dioxide with ball-milling water in a high-pressure environment, so that the leaching efficiency and the
leaching rate of the lithium element in the reduced ternary positive
electrode recycled
powder can be effectively improved.