Workers in a rural South Korean factory extract the worlds most sought after metals. Metals that are in batteries that power electric cars. But they’re not searching through rare mines. Instead, workers are sifting through piles of used lithium-ion batteries from old phones and laptop devices.
What is Urban Mining?
The practice of recovering raw materials from electrical waste, but it doesn’t stop there. It also includes industrial and municipal garbage, as well as construction waste, and furniture. The waste contains copper, gold, silver, iridium, platinum, and other metals.
South Korea Looking Toward Sustainability:
China is looking for cobalt and lithium to service the global demand for electric vehicles. This has led to a global shortage of the key metals used in the production for parts. To keep up with this, South Korea is employing urban mining to recover cobalt, lithium, and other precious metals from electronic waste.
According to a report by the Korea Institute of Industrial Technology, in 2016, 19.6 trillion won ($18.38 billion dollars) worth of minerals were extracted from recycled materials.
SungEel HiTech is Korea’s largest battery recycler, and has witnessed the shift toward recycling for metals used for battery technologies.
Switch Toward New Metals:
Just a decade ago, they were faced with a decision to switch gears from their work of attaining gold and silver from plasma TV panels.
Today, they are part of a supply chain for the world’s biggest battery makers including Samsung SDI and LG Chem. China is the world’s biggest user of metals. It extracts resources from countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has the highest rate of Colton in the world.
High Demand, High Turnout Rates:
SungEel HiTech processes around 8,000 tonnes of spent lithium-ion batteries and metal scraps per year. It can produce about 830 tonnes of lithium phosphate, 1,000 tonnes of cobalt metal, and 600 tonnes of nickel from that alone. They plan on increasing their processing capacity to 24,000 tonnes by 2019.
South Korean Metal Trends:
Over the past several years, South Korea has seen a steady increase in the imports of key metals for lithium-ion batteries. In 2017, South Korea imported 3.5 million tonnes of nickel. Cobalt imports increased 3.4 per cent to 13,972 tonnes from the previous year.
Long term supply contracts, and investments in developing mines and recycling facilities have catapulted. Electronic waste recycling can moderate high prices and limit the dependence upon outside resources for rare metals.
How SungEel HiTech Recycles Materials:
Their processes are not highly automatic, nor are they complex. Once workers extract batteries from recycled devices, the units are drained of power and ground into a powder from which individual metals are separated.The majority of the products that are recycled (60 to 70 per cent) come from the United States, Europe, and South Korea.
The country’s environment ministry changed regulation to promote recycling by charging higher prices for waste disposal .
Related:
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Swedish Mines are Potentially the Answer to Battery Shortage
