Technology Minerals is a company headquartered in London and listed on the London Stock Exchange, creating a circular economy for battery metals. The company is also engaged in the extraction of raw materials required for lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery cathodes, and plans to increase its lead-acid battery recycling capacity to 16,000 tons per year by 2022, and 5,000 tons of lithium-ion batteries per year within the same time frame.

Robin Brundle, Chairman of Technology Minerals plc, outlined TM's plan to recycle batteries on an industrial scale.

We will start full-scale industrial-scale production in early 2022. There are two factories. The first factory is currently being installed and will be put into production in January, focusing on lead-acid battery recycling. The second project on the recycling of lithium-ion batteries is now in the manufacturing test stage and will be put into use in February 2022. Both sites are located in Midlands.

We recently announced a partnership with Slicker Recycling. We will begin to build up front-end inventory and increase production in 2022 to provide a complete UK footprint for our processing plant to collect all types of lithium-ion batteries. In addition, the wider Slicker Group is also very strong in Europe, providing a mirror image of the services they provide in the UK. Therefore, when we establish business relationships in Europe, this may be important to us in due course.

The lead-acid and lithium-ion battery process begins with our nationwide collection process and the safe delivery of the batteries to our processing plants in the central region.

The lithium ion process is industry-leading, and we have the intellectual property rights of process and factory design. Our process can safely handle all five types of lithium-ion battery science and any mix or combination at the same time. The plant has a modular design and is therefore cost-effective. Each plant can process 5,000 tons per year on a single-shift basis. The factory is designed by a British company and manufactured and served in the UK. What sets us apart is that our process does not use pyrolysis or saline solution, which eliminates the risk to the working environment.

In terms of lead acid, we are industrializing and mechanizing a traditionally very labor-intensive industry with a long history. The efficiency of the factory combined with our processes has indeed modernized the industry and will help reduce the number of batteries that are incinerated or worse still sent to landfills.

Regarding black matter, we are working on a final solution for the UK market-it is worth noting that for now-the UK currently does not have the ability to process black matter back to its constituent parts.

Before the UK has this capability, we already have global offtake partners, and we have shared with them the test samples in our process. When we establish black mass production before 2022, we already have these off-take partners.

At the lithium ion factory, we are currently reviewing our factory and process patent applications. We are focused on maintaining our early access to the market advantage and will take the necessary steps to achieve this. The final design and construction of the factory took nearly two years, proving that we must carry out engineering innovations so deeply in the UK.

Britain prepares for industrial-scale battery recycling

In terms of lead acid, we are currently writing a new process to surpass any existing patents. The plant purchases from the United Kingdom, Europe and Brazil, and it takes about eight months from placing an order to completion.

We have had many discussions with battery OEMs and Tier 1 automakers at different stages of maturity to become their respective preferred partners. Of course, our goal is to build our factories according to customer requirements, and where appropriate, take advantage of our modular processing plants and technology to create customized recycling capabilities on site.

This proprietary process allows us to incorporate all five sciences of lithium-ion batteries into our process, whether it is from portable devices, laptops, electric bicycles to the heavier end of cars and energy stations. The science of each battery type is slightly different. Our process allows us to safely recycle any combination until the output of the "black matter" material, which is rich in a variety of key metals and can enter the final refining process to their respective form.

Since this process can handle all five sciences of lithium-ion batteries, we are not restricted by sectors or industries, from the perspective of local authorities seeking safe disposal and recycling, to car OEMs, fleet management, and car dealership networks. With logistics solutions and reuse and recycling engineering processes, these processes do include recycling economy solutions for end-of-life batteries and end-of-life batteries.

Our entire strategy focuses on the circular economy, especially in the battery sector, so our goal is to use 100% of all materials, whether they are mined or recycled.

Our long-term recycling business focuses on the UK and European markets, with a view to growing to 20,000 tons of lithium-ion batteries and 60,000 tons of lead-acid batteries per year in the next ten years.

The biggest market opportunity is in the automotive industry, with 800,000 tons of batteries per year, equivalent to 70% of the European battery market

Lead-acid is the largest battery type, with 831,000 tons, accounting for more than 72% of the European battery market.

Visit a job site designed for engineering professionals in the UK. Every month, we bring you hundreds of new positions from across the industry.

As more and more IC-engined vehicles reach their end of life in the next few years, it sounds like this company has developed a strategy. By meeting the growing demand for lithium-ion batteries, the UK has made some investments in the ever-expanding electric vehicle market, which is also refreshing.

In view of the fact that we have lost the main smelting capacity of zinc, lead, copper, tin in the past thirty years... and we can hardly maintain the smelting capacity of aluminum, the lack of facilities for reprocessing lithium "black matter" in the UK may not be Strange and Steelmaking

This is undoubtedly a wise investment. Once people have a good understanding of what is happening here, they can look forward to the fireworks in the stock price.

Since the service life of car batteries (EV and IC) is expected to be 8 years, and with the continuous growth of the household battery backup system market, this is an essential service that should provide the UK with an opportunity to build a solid business and start as soon as possible Get in and do the right thing, ie. Recycle. This really raises the question of what will happen to ICE vehicle batteries currently?

Thread comments supported by interconnect/IT code.

Copyright © Mark Allen Engineering Ltd (a company of Mark Allen Group) 2019

Mark Allen Engineering Limited Registered Office: Mark Allen Group, St Jude's Church, Dulwich Road, London, SE24 0PB Registered in the UK with the number 11569365