IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v4y2013i1d10.1038_ncomms3178.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

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

Author

Listed:
  • Junqing Pan

    (State Key Laboratory of Chemical Resource Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology
    Electrochemical Energy Laboratory, Materials Science and Engineering Program, The University of Texas at Austin)

  • 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)

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Junqing Pan & Yanzhi Sun & Wei Li & James Knight & Arumugam Manthiram, 2013. "A green lead hydrometallurgical process based on a hydrogen-lead oxide fuel cell," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 4(1), pages 1-6, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:4:y:2013:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms3178
    DOI: 10.1038/ncomms3178
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms3178
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/ncomms3178?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Meshram, Pratima & Pandey, B.D. & Abhilash,, 2019. "Perspective of availability and sustainable recycling prospects of metals in rechargeable batteries – A resource overview," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 9-22.
    2. Tian, Xi & Gong, Yu & Wu, Yufeng & Agyeiwaa, Amma & Zuo, Tieyong, 2014. "Management of used lead acid battery in China: Secondary lead industry progress, policies and problems," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 75-84.
    3. Zhang, Wei & Yang, Jiakuan & Wu, Xu & Hu, Yuchen & Yu, Wenhao & Wang, Junxiong & Dong, Jinxin & Li, Mingyang & Liang, Sha & Hu, Jingping & Kumar, R. Vasant, 2016. "A critical review on secondary lead recycling technology and its prospect," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 108-122.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:4:y:2013:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms3178. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.