Photo courtesy of Nth Cycle
Boston-based Nth Cycle has been awarded a $1 million National Science Foundation Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant in support of building sustainable North American supply of cobalt and other critical minerals in North America. The company is partnering with a North American copper and cobalt mining company that will provide the raw material for its project and the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which will test Nth Cycle’s direct recycled lithium-nickel-manganese-cobalt oxide, or NMC, in new cathodes. The project received an SBIR Phase I award in 2019. The company says its modular electro-extraction technology can recover cobalt and other critical minerals from a variety of ore and low-grade mine tailings as well as from scrap.
Nth Cycle says it can process these metals at 75 percent lower carbon intensity while operating at a significantly lower cost because it saves 60 percent of the energy used by traditional technologies. The company's business model is focused on on-site toll processing arrangements with companies that are producing black mass or with mines. Megan O'Connor, the company's CEO, previously told Recycling Today that she views this approach as “more economical and sustainable,” eliminating the need for transportation. “Transportation is expensive and hazardous,” O’Connor said. “We can go where the batteries are.”
In response to receiving the grant, she says, “To compete in a rapidly expanding global clean energy economy, North America needs a supply of critical minerals that is affordable and responsibly mined. Today’s methods of refining cobalt and other critical minerals are dirty and not economical for the low grades of ore we have available. We’re working to shift that paradigm by creating a clean, low-cost and greater supply of critical minerals. This supply is essential if we want to meet our goals for electric vehicle, energy storage and wind power adoption this decade.”
Nth Cycle says its technology transforms the outputs of electronics recycling, untapped mining resources and waste from existing mines into high-purity critical minerals ready to be used in new production without polluting furnaces or the production of harsh chemical waste.
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