Recovery of Cobalt from Secondary Resources: A Comprehensive Review

ABSTRACT

Cobalt demand has witnessed tremendous growth in recent years due to its wide utilization in many critical industries. However, more than half the world’s demand for cobalt is supplied only by one country, raising concerns about the potential future supply. Considering the status of cobalt as a critical raw material, recycling is viewed as an option to provide an alternative stream of supply by recovering cobalt from secondary resources. In this paper the importance of cobalt recovery from secondary resources is highlighted. The current state of research on Co recovery from secondary resources such as catalysts, magnets, superalloys, cemented carbides, rechargeable batteries, and metallurgical wastes are discussed. The industrial-scale cobalt recycling has also been reviewed to give a better overview of the overall progress. This review provides insights into the future outlook and challenges associated with cobalt recovery from secondary resources. Despite the challenges, cobalt recovery technologies from secondary resources should be further developed.

KEYWORDS:

• Cobalt recovery
• critical raw material
• secondary resources
• recycling
• industrial-scale recycling

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant 51904350, 51922108, and 51874371]; the Hunan Natural Science Foundation [Grant 2019JJ20031]; and Hunan key research and development program [Grant 2020SK2005].