Lead acid batteries account for approximately 85% of the total amount of secondary lead. Other sources are dust, pipes, lead glass from LCD, slag from melting processes. The market has been driven by the emerging countries need for cars, motorcycles and bicycles. The production of electric bikes, especially, has emerged and soared since 1998.
As for the recycled waste batteries, the primary lead industry can take lead concentrate or higher grade lead concentrate after sintering as the main raw material, and lead-containing waste in waste lead-acid batteries such as lead paste from a small number of WLABs as auxiliary ingredients.
Nowadays, 99% of the lead acid batteries are recycled in the US . Lead from spent batteries can be recovered via pyrometallurgical or hydrometallurgical routes. The most common route worldwide for lead recovery from secondary materials is pyrometallurgy. The feed of secondary lead smelters is typically constituted of:
Traditional applications such as blast, reverberatory and rotary furnaces still are considered as standard worldwide. More recently, direct smelting furnaces have gained interest for the processing of secondary lead materials. Ausmelt, Isasmelt, TBRC, QSL and Kivcet furnaces are in use worldwide, mostly in combination with primary lead material.
Status of waste lead-acid battery generation Globally, approximately 10 million tons of lead is used to produce LABs annually, accounting for over 85% of lead production (Machado Santos et al., 2019; Prengaman, 2000; Tan et al., 2019).
The feed of secondary lead smelters is typically constituted of: The elements necessary to the formation of a stable slag are present in low quantity in LAB. To form a low melting slag, fluxes are sometimes added. Common additives are iron, sand or limestone.