Rio Tinto, a metals and mining firm headquartered in London, has announced that it has signed a memorandum of understanding with InoBat, a European battery technology and manufacturing company, to work together to accelerate the establishment of what they call a battery manufacturing and recycling value chain in Serbia. The partnership will cover the full commodity life cycle, from mining to recycling of lithium.
According to a news release from Rio Tinto, the company’s Jadar project in Serbia is a large greenfield lithium project that is in development and has the potential to produce about 55,000 metric tons of battery-grade lithium carbonate in Europe, which Rio Tinto says has a large growing electric vehicle (EV) market. InoBat, which has a pilot plant being developed in Slovakia, plans to scale its future production through gigafactories to be built in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region. InoBat aims to serve the European market with unique energy solutions, including production and recycling of EV batteries.
“This collaboration with InoBat will enable an important exchange of knowledge and information on lithium processing, recycling and technologies for the next generation of batteries,” says Marnie Finlayson, managing director of Rio Tinto. “It is a visionary initiative and one that is aligned with Rio Tinto’s commitment to partnerships that provide solutions to combat climate change.”
According to Rio Tinto, the company hopes the collaboration between its Jadar project and InoBat will encourage the development of a “complete European lithium and electric vehicle battery value chain that will harness and enhance local skills, environmental, social and governance standards and cross-border interactions for the benefit of Serbia and other European economies that wish to collaborate.”
In 2020, Rio Tinto approved an investment of almost $200 million to complete the final phase of study at the Jadar project, which is expected to be finalized in 2021, with an investment decision to follow, the company reports. The company says the scale and nature of the Jadar deposit provides the potential for a mine to supply lithium products into the EV value chain for decades. If approved, construction of a mine to the highest environmental standards would take up to four years and would be a significant investment for Serbia with direct and indirect economic benefits to the Serbian economy.