Two Ontario-based companies are receiving C$10 million in federal research and development funding to develop processes for recycling critical minerals from used batteries.
“For a historic mining nation like Canada—where we have residuals and tailings in communities across the nation—technologies like these present a significant opportunity to increase circularity in our economy and turn mining residuals and waste into an economic opportunity for Canadians,” Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) said in a release.
The funding from NRCan will be distributed to Electra Battery Materials Corporation and the Mining Innovation Rehabilitation and Applied Research Corp (MIRARCO). Each will receive $5 million to support its work.
Electra, based in Toronto, has been developing North America’s only battery-grade cobalt refinery about five hours north of the city in Temiskaming Shores. The company will use the funding for the next phase of a battery recycling project at the facility to recover lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese, and graphite. Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said the plant “will help reduce the environmental impact of battery production in Canada while simultaneously increasing the supply of critically critical recycled metals,” reports Northern Ontario Business.
MIRARCO, a research arm of Laurentian University, aims to recover nickel, cobalt, and copper from tailings from the Vale and Glencore mines in Greater Sudbury, with a bio-leaching technology that uses bacteria to recover metals from mine tailings.
Critical minerals play an important role in the transition to a low-carbon economy for their use in clean energy technologies. The two projects are listed among nearly 130 mining projects in Canada that are planned or under construction over the next decade. Though many of these projects will supply critical minerals, they will also impose various impacts on surrounding environments and communities. Battery recycling projects, meanwhile, offer potential to maintain critical minerals in technology supply chains while reducing the need for new mining projects, and their harmful effects.
