Recycling key to U.S. critical minerals

The growing list of critical minerals and conflict elements like cobalt are drawing intense focus and demand for alternative sources. Investors and consumers are increasingly focused on the environmental, social and governance (ESG) credentials, provenance, and indirect emissions of these supply chains.

If done right, prioritizing urban mining – specifically moving recycled materials upstream in supply chains – could provide cheaper domestic supply with a lower emissions footprint, buying more time for sustainable virgin materials sourcing. Robust urban mining of critical minerals could help facilitate long-term economic resilience, security, and adaptability in the global market.

Similar to traditional mining of elements like lithium, the issue isn't limited to finding resources, but how best to access the reserves that exist.

This home-grown mineral industry will still require a great deal of collaboration, not only between local and national policymakers, automotive and energy industries, but U.S. industries not yet in the spotlight – from construction to the full spectrum of electronics manufacturing.

Supply and demand

Today's principal critical minerals challenge lies in correctly anticipating and narrowing the gap between projected need and resource availability, controlling price volatility for these materials and easing the pressures of supply constraints.

"Future success in diversifying and building more resilient global supply chains will require investments and partnerships by the public and private sectors at every step of the value chain, streamlined project development, cooperation with likeminded partners, a global engagement strategy, and training a new generation of mining professionals," according to a report by Jared Cohen, president of Global Affairs and co-head of the Office of Applied Innovation at Goldman Sachs. "Some of the most important developments that will provide new alternative materials and lower costs will also come from advances in science and technology, many of which are being deployed and tested at scale."

Cash left on the table

Traditional mining as an industry is well-placed to rise up as a proponent of environmental stewardship and a key stakeholder in some of the most vital movements of the clean energy transition.

Rather than replace or sideline virgin ore production, there are significant opportunities (and revenue) to be had by integrating domestic critical minerals recycling into traditional mining, and by tapping into valuable streams of recoverable materials still largely overlooked:

• Proactively engineering renewable product designs for easier refurbishment and reduction to their useful elements for recovery (considering a product's final incarnation as disassembled modules rather than black mass), Tennessee-based Oak Ridge National Laboratory's robots can dismantle battery housings to whatever degree is required, with a system adaptable to any type of battery stack, programmed to refurbish or reconfigure batteries or disassemble them down to the cell level for materials recovery.

• Updating existing scrap and second-life processing techniques and infrastructure (both U.S. municipal collections and industrial materials recovery need extensive overhauling). Efficient recovery of critical materials from e-waste, tailings, decommissioned and end-of-life products to reintegrate into the supply chain.

• Reevaluating geographic silos where widely distributed corporate operations struggle to coordinate and adapt to changes, disadvantaging both suppliers of recovered materials and manufacturers. Along with gigafactories, companies from Ford to Tesla are developing their own proprietary supply lines, manufacturing and processing hubs. Onshoring and near-shoring manufacturing processes previously seen as cost-prohibitive are now an increasingly acceptable part of the cost of doing business within the U.S. market and others.

Built-in deconstruction

The traditionally labor-intensive nature and safety issues in EV battery recycling are being resolved by robotics and automation-more electronics and green-energy products can be designed so that the valuable materials in them are extracted easily and efficiently.

Solar panels and wind turbines, as the main users of critical minerals behind lithium batteries, can and will be manufactured so that at end-of-life, they can be dismantled and recycled efficiently, with limited labor, energy, and loss of component metals. OEMs, aerospace, and defense could be incentivized to follow suit.

Texas-based SOLARCYCLE boasts a 95% recovery rate of valuable materials in their solar panel recycling process, receiving $1.5 million from the U.S. Department of Energy to research higher-purity metals and materials extraction, and making deals with companies like Greenbacker Energy Company, which owns nearly 1GW of solar, to recycle all their decommissioned panels.

And while improved methods for battery recycling, such as hydrometallurgy, are well suited to recover lithium battery cathode materials such as cobalt, lithium, manganese, and nickel, there is still opportunity for innovation and improved recovery of aluminum, copper, graphite, and iron from anodes, casings, and components.

"As technology advances, batteries are becoming more energy-dense and volumetrically efficient, incorporating improved thermal management systems," said Ryan Melsert, CEO at American Technology Battery Company, during a panel discussion this month at the Battery Show North America. "This complexity is further accentuated as we shift toward cell-to-pack technologies, where the vehicle becomes an integral part of the battery. Companies that have the highest performance recycling technologies can recover even more of the elements and lower cost."

Emphasizing future deconstruction during the engineering phase allows for the preservation of recycled materials in useful forms rather than destructively breaking them back down to base elements.

For example, direct cathode-to-cathode recovery not only requires fewer steps for reintegration but can also be less energy intensive than chemically produced lithium carbonate that must be reprocessed before it is again suitable for battery use.

Waste as commodity

A balanced and circular economy is theoretically established in two ways: by decreasing the demand for critical materials and increasing their supply.

However, a likely outcome of improved efficiency is increased production. As a result, decreasing the material usage per product won't lead to a decrease in critical material demand overall.

With many new U.S. mining projects now under permitting and development, the 10-plus year process to get a domestic mine up and running still means they arrive late to the game. While domestic capacity is also being speedily increased by expanding and reopening old mines, the quality of metals and efficiency of extraction is usually reduced.

One alternative is commodifying urban mining – increasing the supply of critical minerals on hand by recovering them into the supply chain early and often, supported between governments and all stakeholders through whose hands these materials pass.

In Europe and the U.S., most of the materials suitable for recycling still come from e-waste, laptops and other household items, and production scrap rejected by quality control, with manufacturing waste being as high as 30% when a new battery factory launches.

Further significant sources of feedstock volume for recycling arise from burgeoning markets where EV battery manufacturing is ramping up. But for the most part, production scrap may remain the primary source of battery materials for recycling until retired EV battery volumes overtake it in the coming years.

Ongoing research, including a peer-reviewed study in 2021 found that recycling from select consumer goods and the byproducts of other mining and phosphate processing could yield higher volumes of rare earth elements than virgin ore. This includes over three times more dysprosium from earbuds, six times more lanthanum from hybrid batteries, six times more neodymium from spent polishing powders and 11 times more scandium from aluminum and similar bauxite ore processing (which studies have shown also produce tailings rich in lithium).

An increasing number of EV manufacturers alongside Tesla have battery recycling projects to recover their own cobalt, nickel, and lithium supplies. Volkswagen has entered into a partnership with Redwood Materials, and General Motors with Li-Cycle and Cirba Solutions.

Beyond commodifying industrial and private waste streams, existing operations in legacy mines, oil and gas industries present opportunities for recovery of critical minerals from what are currently viewed as waste products, from oilfield brines to tailing dams, with the added appeal of improved water quality, revitalization of biodiversity loss and the like.

The way forward

A number of organizational challenges will need to be overcome to see these ambitions realized.

Recycling projects require a network that can provide a consistent supply of material. Without a reliable source, such as an exclusive arrangement with a manufacturer or municipality with strong collections, it can be risky for recycling operations to exist without a steady feedstock of materials.

Companies working to establish a more circular economy need reverse logistics systems to move spent goods from customers back into the supply chain, recycling plants and infrastructure to get enough end-of-use products back, and to process them. Initial capital investments will take time to recover and require industry leaders and policymakers to maintain a long-term mindset.

The international community may need to develop, as well as reexamine, policies for long-term effectiveness, such as e-waste export and hazardous waste designations. A new proposal under consideration by the Basel Convention, for example, could restrict the trade-in of end-of-life electronics.

Those policymakers will play a key role in putting legislation in place to promote the viability of recycling projects as part of the global green transition. Government initiatives may come in the form of providing economic incentives, mandating minimum recovery standards, or providing financial support for recycling projects in their infancy.

Success in developing a strong domestic critical minerals supply may hinge on redefining the hierarchy of mineral recovery – from one that leads with extraction to one that leads with recovery as an integral source for materials that lend themselves well to the process and, by their nature, do not degrade with reuse.