Canada Silver Cobalt Works Inc (CVE:CCW) (OTCMKTS:CCWOF) (FRA:4T9B) has announced the start of a battery recycling initiative using its proprietary hydrometallurgical Re-2Ox process.
In a statement, the company said it has begun bench and pilot plant studies at SGS Canada for battery recycling using the Re-2Ox process, which is the only known hydrometallurgical process purposely designed and adaptable to recover and recycle metals from lithium-ion, nickel-hydride and nickel-cadmium batteries.
Core process chemistry of the Re-2Ox process is adaptable to rare earth metals recovery from Nickel-hydride batteries, and Canada Silver Cobalt Works said that its battery-grade cobalt sulfate has been produced from a multi-element cobalt concentrate using the Re-2Ox process at SGS Canada to meet international battery specifications.
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The company also said it has received electrodes of a commercial-grade nickel-cadmium battery at SGS Canada to begin initial scoping studies. Bench-scale testing followed by pilot plant studies will be undertaken, and the same procedure will be used on all three battery types.
Canada Silver Cobalt Works noted that recent data on global lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery sales compiled from 2016 highlight a discrepancy between sales of 500,000 tons, and recycling capacity of only 94,000 tons. If it were assumed that recycling capacity was exclusively dedicated to Li-ion batteries, the company added, that would only cover 19% of annual production volume. By 2024 the gap between recycling capacity and battery production is expected to widen with only 9% of 3 million tons being covered by recycling capacity, according to Propulsion Quebec.
With so-called “green" battery technologies, true sustainability can only be achieved with an efficient way to capture valuable materials in spent batteries and diverting them from landfills, the company said.
Lithium-ion battery recycling typically begins with the separation of the outer casing from the cells. The cathode and anode in the cell are together used to create a powder referred to as "black mass." The resulting blend contains valuable minerals like lithium, cobalt, nickel, manganese, and graphite.
Canada Silver Cobalt said it will use a purely hydrometallurgical approach by employing Re-2Ox for selective leaching to enhance the process recovery of metals. Recycling plants that use hydrometallurgy exclusively are rare and only one is known to exist in Europe -- and the company will be the first in North America to use this method.
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