Maria Cox said that currently Meiko has developed a low-energy smelting technology that Tesla and Toyota will use to recover lithium-ion batteries in their European all-electric and hybrid vehicles.
Maria Cox, general manager of the British Small Metals Trade Association (MMTA), said at the 2016 Global Small Metals Forum on 29 that many small metals have high economic value for recycling. Taking battery material recycling as an example, it is estimated that the lithium-ion battery recycling market will be worth 1.3 billion (equivalent to about 11.1 billion yuan) by 2022.
Maria Cox said that currently Meiko has developed a low-energy smelting technology that Tesla and Toyota will use to recover lithium-ion batteries in their European all-electric and hybrid vehicles.
In fact, besides power batteries, lithium, cobalt, germanium, gallium and other small metals are also used in other parts of automobiles, and the recovery system still needs to be further improved.
It is understood that the small metal recovery technologies already available in the world involve the recovery of rhenium and noble metals from spent catalysts, tantalum from used capacitors, indium from indium tin oxide and sputtering wastes, tungsten from cemented carbide wastes, molybdenum, tungsten and niobium from used sputtering targets, and cobalt-titanium based superalloys.
Feng Juncong, secretary-general of Indium Bismuth Germanium Branch and Gallium Selenium Tellurium Branch of China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association, also said at the meeting that for the future development of small metal industry, attention should be paid to the research and industrialization of recycling technology.