Swiss mining company Glencore has signed a deal to supply cobalt hydroxide for Umicore’s battery materials operations.
The long-term revolving agreement comes just days after Umicore announced it was expanding with its planned acquisition of Freeport Cobalt’s cobalt refining and cathode precursor activities in Finland.
US lead-acid battery recycler Aqua Metals, which posted a first-quarter net loss of US$11.7 million, said it intends to offer and sell shares of its common stock in an underwritten public offering.
The loss reflected several non-cash items, including expenses related to the firm’s agreement with the US arm of France’s transnational Veolia group to operate and manage its AquaRefining plant in Nevada.
Researchers at the University of California San Diego say they have improved the safety of a recycling process that regenerates degraded cathodes from spent lithium-ion batteries.
The research is part of a larger effort under the US ReCell Center initiative to promote ithium-ion battery recycling.
Project leader Zheng Chen (pictured), a professor of nanoengineering affiliated with the Sustainable Power and Energy Center at UC San Diego, said: “Due to the rapid growth of electric vehicle markets, the worldwide manufacturing capacity of lithium-ion batteries is expected to reach hundreds of gigawatt hours per year in the next five years.”
Financial regulators in China have given Tianneng Energy Technology the green light to spin-off its batteries division to “expand and transform” its lead-acid and lithium-ion manufacturing operations.
Tianneng said the spin-off would focus on R&D, manufacture, sales and “ancillary services” for lead-acid, lithium-ion and other “new energy batteries”.
Finnish companies Fortum and Crisolteq have teamed up to launch a materials recovery process claimed to make more than 80% of electric vehicle (EV) batteries recyclable.
Power company Fortum said the technology uses “a low-CO2 hydrometallurgical process”, developed by metal recycling services firm Crisolteq, to recover scarce battery metals such as cobalt, nickel, manganese and lithium.
More than half of Europe’s used batteries “disappear” without proper treatment because of “outdated” recycling rules and inadequate targets for collecting lithium-ion batteries, according to a damning report.
The study criticises the European Union’s Batteries Directive for lacking “a target or provisions for a monitoring system” to keep track of uncollected batteries— which are said to be fuelling health and safety fears by being dumped with household waste.
Bulgarian lead-acid battery manufacturer Monbat has dropped plans to buy a majority stake in Tunisian lead firm Assad.
The decision to scrap the deal, announced last year, came amid reports of an alleged pending legal case concerning the land on which Assad built its production plant— and concern that Monbat would be unable to retain control of an Assad subsidiary in Algeria because of proceedings in that country.
Monbat declined to comment in detail, but a spokesperson said: “In the course of the final stage of the due diligence of L’accumulateur Tunisiene Assad, there were subsequent matters disclosed which are challenging the originally expected value creation and are increasing Monbat’s level of enterprise risk.”
Other projects being financed by Monbat’s recent corporate bond issue are under way and an update will be issued to investors in due course, the Sofia-based company said in a filing with Bulgaria’s Financial Supervision Commission.
Monbat said it would “sustain its investment selectivity and focus on those business projects in the current pipeline, which provide the best match between return and operational risk”.
Assad, founded in 1974, designs, manufacturers, distributes and recycles lead-acid batteries for applications, including automotive, marine, solar, industry and telecoms.
Assad has reported a combined annual production capacity of 1.2 million batteries. The firm’s recycling arm was launched in 2002 to recycle around 10,000 tons of used batteries from the Tunisian market each year.
Monbat was founded in 1959, privatised in 1998 and is now a leading European battery producer. The company has production and recycling plants in three countries and exports worldwide.
The BMW Group has formed a joint technology consortium with Swedish lithium-ion start-up Northvolt and Belgium-based materials tech giant Umicore, to develop a “complete and sustainable value chain for battery cells for EVs in Europe”.
This announcement comes just weeks after BMW placed a “billion euro” order for EV batteries from China, saying that they “can’t wait” for Europe to build a battery cells industry.
The consortium’s main aim is to establish a closed life cycle loop for batteries to make battery cells sustainable. The partners said this would be achieved by creating a recyclable cell design and manufacturing process that uses mostly renewable energy.
Bulgarian lead-acid battery manufacturer Monbat has dropped plans to buy a majority stake in Tunisian lead firm Assad.
The decision to scrap the deal, announced last year, came amid reports of an alleged pending legal case concerning the land on which Assad built its production plant— and concern that Monbat would be unable to retain control of an Assad subsidiary in Algeria because of proceedings in that country.
Monbat declined to comment in detail, but a spokesperson said: “In the course of the final stage of the due diligence of L’accumulateur Tunisiene Assad, there were subsequent matters disclosed which are challenging the originally expected value creation and are increasing Monbat’s level of enterprise risk.”
Novel US lead-acid battery-recycling company Aqua Metals has “overcome technical hurdles” and is now making lead ingots at a “steady state”, the company’s president has announced.
Steve Cotton said the firm would be able to ship its “ultra-pure AquaRefined lead directly to battery manufacturers for production— and also allow them to test our AquaRefined lead for improved battery performance and life”.
Cotton’s announcement signalled what the company hopes will be a continuation of a gradual turnaround in its fortunes following a number of setbacks in striving to commercialise a water-based lead-acid recycling process.
