Study on the preparation of SiC–C–t‐ZrO ₂ composites and its corrosion resistance to crushed after‐used lithium batteries

Abstract In order to solve the severe erosion of kiln refractories for the high‐temperature treatment used during the process of recovering valuable metal elements from waste lithium batteries, this study investigates the low‐cost, no‐firing preparation technology of erosion‐resistant SiC–C–t‐ZrO ₂ composites with self‐prepared t‐ZrO ₂ –SiC–C powder, as well as silicon carbide and flake graphite as the main raw materials, and phenolic resin as the binding agent. (1) The effects of different t‐ZrO ₂ –SiC–C powder additions and heat treatment temperatures on the properties of SiC–C–t‐ZrO ₂ composites were studied in details. (2) The erosion resistance of SiC–C–t‐ZrO ₂ composites to after‐use lithium battery waste was evaluated using the static crucible method. The mechanical properties of the t‐ZrO ₂ –SiC–C composites was the best that its cold modulus of rupture (CMOR) was 11.37 MPa and cold crush strength (CCS) was 41.96 MPa when heat treatment temperature was 600°C and content of t‐ZrO ₂ –SiC–C powder was 10 wt%. At that condition, the bulk density of samples reached to 3.15 g/cm ³ and apparent porosity of it was only at 11.09% which means that the samples designed in this work are compacted enough. In the erosion test, the t‐ZrO ₂ –SiC–C composites had an excellent resistance to erosion of lithium battery waste.