How to Mine Cobalt Without Going to Congo

Nearly 9,000 miles from the dusty Congolese Savannah, the miners found a new source of cobalt ---
Rare minerals in the power center --car boom.
Not only can they have a coffee break, but they can also have donuts at Tim Houghton.
Scientists working for the American Manganese Company
Located in the suburbs of Vancouver, a method has been developed to produce enough blue
Today, gray metal powers all electric cars on the road without drilling into the ground: recycling faulty batteries.
This is one of the technologies that many entrepreneurs apply for patents, preparing for an era when electric vehicles exceed contaminated gasoline engines, reversing the entire automotive supply chain in the process.
The industry will need cheap sources of cobalt, copper and lithium instead of radiators, earplugs and fuel syringes.
\"Mining batteries are more profitable than mining,\" said Larry Reo, president of Manganese Corporation of the United States, who is applying for a patent for a method to extract all the metals in rechargeable batteries.
\"You are not mining ore of 2% cobalt, but a battery containing 100% cobalt.
Innovators like him have made such great progress that companies like Tesla
And Toyota Motor Corp.
According to data from Bloomberg New Energy Finance, if the company launches a large plan, it can expect to recycle 10% of the demand for battery materials by 2025.
This will relieve the pressure of lithium and cobalt. The price of lithium and cobalt has more than doubled over the past year.
Especially finding new sources of cobalt could be a game
Because more than half of the relatively rare metals are from Congo (Kim ).
It is not only one of the poorest countries in the world, but after decades of violence and corruption, it is also difficult to do business there.
Child labor is still used in some artisanal mines.
10 lithium recovered from manganese in the United States-ion batteries --
For all areas from home electronics to smartphones-
Unqualified quality
Control the test, eventually in danger-waste dumps.
According to Reaugh, this can produce up to 4,000 tons of cobalt.
If so, it would be equivalent to the material used by all electric vehicles this year.
Coupled with Bloomberg New Energy Finance\'s 311,000-ton electric vehicle battery, which is expected to stop working by 2025, the potential metal treasure house will grow exponentially.
George Heppel, a London consultant, said recycling could have a \"stabilizing effect\" on battery metal prices\"
CRU Co. , Ltd based on commodity analysis company
After soaring from $10 a pound to $30 in less than two years, the price increase for cobalt is expected to drop to $32 in 2021 and $41 by 2022. According to the forecast of Macquarie Group Co. , Ltd.
One of the largest banks in commodities.
As Argentina and Australia begin to produce new lithium supplies, the pressure on lithium, mainly from salt lakes in Chile, will also be reduced.
James Frith, energy storage analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, said: \"Recycling will help ease supply constraints we expect in the coming years . \".
\"It\'s going to be a big deal, mainly because you\'re not going to put all the waste into the land.
\"That doesn\'t mean miners like Glencore, the world\'s largest producer, need to cut production.
With the number of electric vehicles on the road from Shanghai to Paris soaring from 2 million now to 0. 118 billion in 2030, demand for cobalt will soar to 156,000 tons.
By then, cars that emit fewer greenhouse gases than internal combustion engines will be everywhere. The U. K.
France plans to ban the sale of gasoline. and diesel-
Until 2040.
China is tackling one of the world\'s worst air pollution problems, with the goal of making electric vehicles 10% of new sales in two years.
However, in order to truly achieve the Paris agreement\'s goal of slowing global warming, governments need to ensure that car batteries ---
In some cases, the weight is over 500-
When they die, don\'t leave a big environmental footprint.
At present, some companies burn expired batteries and release a series of toxic gases.
Others even buried them underground.
\"We expect recycling to start in 10 to 12 years when the first wave of electric vehicles is about to be scrapped,\" said Brussels chief executive Mark Greenberg --
Headquartered in Umicore, one of the few companies that can recycle electricity
An industrial car battery in a factory in Belgium.
Umicore has reached an agreement with Tesla and Toyota to recycle expired batteries in Europe.
It uses smelting to recover minerals to make cathode materials. -
A part of the battery that stores chemical reactions and produces electrons.
At manganese USA, Reaugh said he could extract the metal for 30 cents per pound and resell it to the battery maker for $20 per pound.
Electric vehicle batteries are harder to recycle than conventional lead
There are many kinds of acids, because they include many materials, and manufacturers usually have different manufacturing methods.
Gavin Montgomery, director of global metal market research at Wood Mackenzie Limited, said this could be an obstacle to the implementation of a standardized recycling program.
UK tech start-ups Aceleron and tw Ltd.
This problem was solved by transforming abandoned car batteries into packages that can be used for home storage of renewable energy generated by roof solar panels.
\"We are not worried about these problems in landfill sites,\" said Louis Scheffer, European, Middle East and Africa\'s renewable energy department manager for battery production at Eaton Industrial Manufacturing Co. , Ltd.
\"There are not many large recycling centers today.
But like other batteries, it will be a very good business once there is enough.
Umicore and manganese said they have overcome a major obstacle-
They can now recycle lithium directly from their batteries, something commercial smelting has been unable to do.
Reaugh, who has worked in the United States and China for precious metals and base metal miners for 40 years, is applying for patented technology to remove the battery shell with a robot and soak the battery in a chemical solution for 30 minutes, to remove pure metal.
He plans to raise $6 million next year to set up a pilot plant near Vancouver.
\"This is a direct market,\" he said . \"—