2026 Taner Mn Zn Leaching from Spent Batteries

Zinc-carbon batteries are non-rechargeable and preferred due to their low cost. Since spent batteries contain various heavy metals, they cause environmental pollution if disposed of improperly. It has great importance to recover metals from spent batteries in order to use natural resources consciously and to prevent environmental pollution. Spent Zn-C batteries used in this study were manually dismantled and paper, plastic, metallic materials, and carbon were removed from the battery powder. The powder was used in the leaching experiments. Tartaric acid was used as a reducing agent for the dissolution of Mn and Zn from spent Zn-C battery powder in hydrochloric acid solution. The effect of stirring speed, concentration of hydrochloric acid, temperature, and reductant concentration was studied. The optimum leaching conditions for the acid leaching experiments were determined to be 400 rpm stirring speed, 0.5 M HCl concentration, and 60 °C temperature. In these conditions, while all of the Zn was dissolved, about 69.86% of Mn was dissolved. In addition, reductive leaching experiments were performed, and 100% of Mn dissolution was obtained for 0.01 M reducing agent concentration.