Application of MVR Evaporator in Power Lithium Battery Recycling

Project Background

With the rapid growth of the global new energy industry, the number of retired power lithium batteries is increasing dramatically, driving the rapid expansion of the battery recycling sector. Efficient battery recycling has become an essential part of the circular economy, enabling valuable resources to be recovered while minimizing environmental impact.

Power lithium batteries contain significant quantities of strategic metals, including lithium, nickel, cobalt, and manganese. If these batteries are not properly recycled, they can cause serious environmental pollution and waste valuable natural resources. Modern recycling technologies not only reduce dependence on newly mined materials but also provide a sustainable supply of critical battery metals.

Through advanced hydrometallurgical processes, high-purity battery materials such as nickel sulfate, cobalt sulfate, manganese sulfate, lithium sulfate, and lithium carbonate can be efficiently recovered. Among the entire recycling process, evaporation and crystallization are critical operations that determine the purity, yield, and overall quality of the recovered products.

The performance of the evaporation and crystallization system has a direct impact on product quality, process efficiency, operating costs, and the long-term reliability of the recycling plant. Consequently, selecting the appropriate evaporation technology is one of the most important considerations in modern battery recycling facilities.

Mechanical Vapor Recompression (MVR) evaporation has become the preferred solution for lithium battery recycling projects due to its outstanding energy efficiency, low operating costs, high degree of automation, and ability to consistently produce battery-grade products.

Hydrometallurgical Process in Power Battery Recycling

Among the available recycling technologies, hydrometallurgy is currently the most mature and widely adopted process for recovering valuable metals from spent lithium-ion batteries.

The process begins with battery dismantling, crushing, and physical separation to obtain the active material, commonly known as black mass. The black mass then undergoes acid leaching, impurity removal, solvent extraction, and purification to produce high-purity metal salt solutions containing nickel, cobalt, manganese, and lithium.

These purified solutions are subsequently concentrated through evaporation and crystallization before being dried to produce battery-grade nickel sulfate, cobalt sulfate, manganese sulfate, and other valuable metal salts. These materials are essential raw materials for manufacturing ternary cathode precursors (NCM), completing the closed-loop recycling of retired batteries into new battery materials.

MVR Evaporator: The Core Equipment for High-Efficiency Evaporation and Crystallization 

Within the hydrometallurgical recycling process, evaporation and crystallization are among the most energy-intensive operations. MVR evaporators have become the preferred technology because they significantly reduce steam consumption while maintaining excellent product quality and stable continuous operation.

Key Advantages of MVR in Battery Recycling:

1) Outstanding Energy Efficiency

MVR technology compresses and recycles the secondary vapor generated during evaporation, allowing the latent heat to be reused as the primary heating source. As a result, fresh steam consumption is drastically reduced, leading to substantial energy savings and lower operating costs.

2) Stable and Continuous Operation

MVR evaporators provide stable operating conditions for concentrating and crystallizing metal salt solutions such as nickel sulfate, cobalt sulfate, manganese sulfate, sodium sulfate, and sodium chloride. Precise temperature and concentration control ensure consistent crystal quality and high product purity.

3) High Degree of Antomation

MVR systems are equipped with advanced instrumentation and intelligent control systems for real-time monitoring of process parameters, condensate quality, liquid levels, temperatures, and pressures. Automated operation, online cleaning functions, and intelligent fault diagnostics improve equipment reliability while reducing maintenance requirements and labor costs.

4) Environmental Sustainability 

MVR technology greatly reduces steam consumption, cooling water demand, and carbon emissions compared with conventional evaporation systems. In addition, the high-quality condensate can often be reused within the process, further reducing water consumption and supporting sustainable plant operation.

Reference Project: MVR Evaporators in Lithium Battery Recycling

Our company has successfully supplied multiple MVR evaporation and crystallization systems for a large-scale lithium battery recycling project. Each system was specifically designed to meet the requirements of different process streams.

The supplied equipment includes:

MVR Evaporator for Sodium Sulfate Concentration – Evaporation capacity: 38 t/h

MVR Evaporator for Sodium Chloride Crystallization – Evaporation capacity: 3 t/h

MVR Evaporator for Nickel Sulfate Crystallization – Evaporation capacity: 4 t/h

MVR Evaporator for Cobalt Sulfate Crystallization – Evaporation capacity: 1.2 t/h

MVR Evaporator for Manganese Sulfate Crystallization – Evaporation capacity: 1.6 t/h