The Elements of Innovation Discovered
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Critical minerals can be recycled from decades of e-waste The necessity of reclaiming waste as a means to curb the seemingly impossible material requirements of a renewable future is fostering a different kind of industry – urban mining. "When you're in the renewable energy space, you've got to think through the whole lifecycle – where will EV and lithium-ion batteries go when they are no longer useful? It can't be to a landfill. That's not responsible," said Graphite One Pres...
Becancour, a small Quebec town along the shores of the St. Lawrence River about midway between Montreal and Quebec City, is rapidly emerging as an epicenter for producing the advanced materials needed for lithium-ion batteries powering the electric vehicle revolution. This rural Canadian town of around 12,800 people surfaced in the battery space about a year ago when Nouveau Monde Graphite Inc. announced plans to build a facility there to produce the coated spherical purified...
A group of bipartisan senators and a conservation organization are urging the White House to take definitive actions to bolster domestic production of the minerals critical to clean energy and national security. In a March 11 letter to President Biden, Senators Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska); Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia), Jim Risch (R-Idaho), and Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana) pointed out that the "lack of home-grown production...
With mass production of batteries that store intermittent renewable energy and power electric vehicles being a vital component of the envisioned clean energy future, the Biden administration has authorized use of the Defense Production Act to bolster American supplies of these critical battery minerals and materials. "Specifically, the DPA will be authorized to support the production and processing of minerals and materials used for large capacity batteries – such as l...
To help shore up domestic supplies of the cobalt, graphite, lithium, nickel, and other materials that go into lithium-ion batteries, the U.S. Department of Energy has directed $3.16 billion from the $1 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to bolster supply chains. This multi-billion-dollar funding comes a month after President Biden authorized the Pentagon to utilize the estimated $750 million of available Defense Production Act Title III funding to establish and...
To gain a better understanding of the potential for critical minerals in the Ozarks, the U.S. Geological Survey has partnered with Arkansas and Missouri geologists on a $2.75 million program that will result in collecting "the largest continuous swath of geophysical data in the United States focused on critical mineral resources." This program is being carried out under the Earth Mapping Resources Initiative, or Earth MRI, a partnership between the USGS, Association of...
From flashlights to supercomputers, tin is the glue for an electronic age Lost in the clamor for lithium, nickel and other metals needed for the batteries powering electric vehicles and modern electronics, or the rare earth elements that turn stored energy into motion, is the enormous need for a much more modest metal that is so fundamental to the advancement of technology that it almost goes unseen – tin. While other technology metals are critical to certain products and s...
Replacing this oft-maligned lithium-ion battery metal comes at a cost Traditionally a headline-grabbing metal due to the perceived human rights and monetary costs it adds to lithium-ion batteries and the electric vehicles they power, cobalt is being overshadowed by the enormous demand and price increases for the lithium and nickel that also go into the storage cells that deliver the "E" to the EV revolution. Cobalt, however, continues to be a vital ingredient that improves...
Manganese-rich battery cathode recipes could stretch the other ingredients While not as talked about as other battery ingredients such as cobalt, lithium, and nickel, manganese is an important stabilizing ingredient in the cathodes of the nickel-manganese-cobalt lithium-ion batteries widely used in electric vehicles and electronics. "Their composition helps determine how long you can talk on the phone, how far you can drive an electric car, how fast a battery can recharge and...
RecycLiCo Battery Materials Inc., in partnership with Kemetco Research Inc., has announced over 99% lithium recovery from its lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) battery cathode materials process during bench-scale tests. Since 2016, RecycLiCo has facilitated up to 100% extraction of valuable battery materials from nickel-rich, manganese-rich, cobalt-rich, and now LFP cathode chemistries. As all these battery chemistries contain lithium, which has seen a more than 350% increase in pr...
Looking to secure the materials required for the lithium batteries that will deliver power to more than 2 million electric vehicles per year by 2026, Ford Motor Company is adding the clout of its Blue Oval emblem to mining companies and projects that can offer low-carbon supplies of the aluminum, battery materials, and copper needed to build its envisioned e-mobility future. "Ford's new electric vehicle lineup has generated huge enthusiasm and demand, and now we are putting...
Umicore to invest C$1.5B on lithium battery materials plant in Ontario. To establish the missing link between Ontario's abundant lithium battery metal resources and the established automotive industry in the Canadian province, Belgium-based Umicore plans to invest C$1.5 billion (US$1.2 billion) to build a plant that will feed cathode battery materials into the North American EV supply chain. "Canada and the Ontario province have all it takes for Umicore to establish a...
After several months of waiting, RecycLiCo Battery Materials (previously American Manganese) has announced the results of a life cycle assessment for its lithium-ion battery recycling-upcycling RecycLiCo process. Conducted by London-based and globally recognized sustainability consultancy Minviro Ltd., the life cycle assessment is a standardized, scientific method for quantifying the direct and embodied environmental impacts associated with the RecycLiCo process. By...
Global mining and metals company Rio Tinto has entered into a strategic partnership that includes a roughly US$10 million (C$12.5 million) investment in Nano One Materials Corp., a British Columbia-based company that has developed a technology equivalent to the "Instant Pot" of lithium battery cathode materials. While there has been a lot of buzz about the hundreds of factories being constructed around the globe to manufacture the lithium batteries needed for the electric...
Manganese X Energy Corp. is rapidly advancing plans to become a North American producer of manganese, an oft-overlooked metal critical to lithium-ion batteries. The company recently published a preliminary economic assessment that outlines a financially robust mine at its Battery Hill project in New Brunswick that would produce an average of 68,000 metric tons of battery-grade, high-purity manganese sulphate sulfate monohydrate (HPMSM) annually for 47 years. This long-lived...
American Manganese reports that it has delivered NMC-811 (nickel-manganese-cobalt) cathode precursor material samples produced with its RecycLiCo technology to third-party collaborators in North America, Europe, and Asia. "We are maintaining an active collaboration with players in the growing battery industry with our continuous lab-scale research, while we work in parallel to prepare our demonstration plant for scaled-up and continuous operations," said American Manganese...
American Manganese Inc. reported that it has received the preliminary life cycle assessment results for its RecycLiCo lithium-ion battery recycling process and is awaiting the final external review by an ISO-compliant third party before releasing the results. The complete "gate-to-gate" life cycle assessment (LCA) was performed by Minviro Ltd., a UK-based and globally recognized sustainability and LCA consultancy, to quantify the environmental performance of producing...
With mining giant Glencore AG agreeing to buy the nickel and cobalt recycled from spent lithium-ion batteries over the next two years, Electra Battery Materials Corp.'s vision of developing an eco-industrial park in Ontario that serves as a one-stop-shop for the materials needed for the batteries powering 1.5 million electric vehicles per year is one step closer to reality. The Electra Battery Materials Park is being developed around the company's cobalt refinery about 250...
Adding to a growing list of deals to source the materials and components needed for its vision to get everybody in on its transition to an all-electric future, General Motors is working with POSCO Chemical to develop a roughly $400 million plant in Quebec to produce cathode active material for Ultium batteries that will power GM electric vehicles such as the Chevrolet Silverado EV, GMC HUMMER EV, and Cadillac LYRIQ. Planning to have the capacity to build 1 million electric...
The proposed list of 50 critical minerals unveiled by the U.S. Geological Survey in November shined a light on how dependent the United States is on foreign countries for rare earth elements and a broad array of other technology metals vital to electric vehicles, clean energy, high-tech, and other industrial sectors. The enormous Round Top deposit in the West Texas desert hosts nearly half of the minerals and metals deemed critical to America's economic wellbeing and national...
While hailing President Joe Biden's use of the Defense Production Act to bolster domestic supplies of battery minerals and materials as a win for rebuilding United States supply chains, the bipartisan group of senators that urged this action say more needs to be done to curb America's heavy dependence on oft adversarial countries for the minerals and metals critical to the nation's security and economic wellbeing. "While I am heartened that President Biden is heeding our...
Graphite One Inc.'s plans to establish a complete domestic supply chain for the advanced graphite materials for electric vehicle batteries was bolstered by President Joe Biden's decision to use the Defense Production Act to boost American supplies of critical battery materials. On March 31, the President signed a memorandum that orders the Pentagon to utilize Defense Production Act Title III funding to establish and expand upon sustainable and responsible production of the...
Looking to establish itself as a major new player in the technology metals and energy transition metals space, Welsbach Technology Metals Acquisition Corp. has launched a $75 million initial public offering on the Nasdaq Global Market. Led by CEO Daniel Mamadou, a technology metals advisor with more than 20 years of experience in global banking, Welsbach is being established as a blank check company that will use the funds raised through its IPO to invest in and support...
Pennsylvanian coal helped to fuel America's Industrial Revolution, and mines in the Keystone State have since provided a domestic source of iron ore, cobalt, nickel, and various other metals. Now, researchers at Pennsylvania State University have identified a potential motherlode of battery metals to feed into America's EV Revolution in waste left behind by more than two centuries of mining in the commonwealth. "Preliminary estimates indicate that waste left by coal mining...
In another step toward realizing its vision of establishing a lithium battery materials park at its First Cobalt refinery in Ontario, Electra Battery Materials Corp. is putting in motion a plan to begin recycling lithium, nickel, cobalt, copper, and graphite from the black mass produced from recycled lithium-ion batteries. "With our existing facility in Canada, Electra can be the first recycler to establish a closed-loop supply of battery materials, making electric vehicles...