Lithium cobaltate was separated from lithium-ion battery materials with diesel as collector and methyl isobutyl carbinol (MIBC) as foaming agent. The effect of the amount of collector and foaming agent, the type and the mount of inhibitor agent and dispersing agent were investigated, and the process conditions were optimized. The results show that, under the optimum conditions, i.e., the mass concentration of pulp is 0.05 g/mL, pH is 6.0, the mass of diesel, sodium hexametapho sphate, sodium polyacrylate and MIBC are 0.15, 0.75, 0.75 and 0.84 mg, respectively, the recovery rate of lithium coba...