Apple has been experimenting with ways to recover cobalt from its lithium-ion batteries and to use recycled cobalt.
The company says it could potentially recover 550 kilograms of cobalt from every 100,000 iPhone 6 devices it recycles. Now there are reports it's looking to secure cobalt directly from miners, marking a further move by original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to ensure certainty of raw materials supply and to have confidence in their ethical provenance. The scramble by companies to safeguard reliable sources of the key raw materials that make up the various components of smart phones, aircraft engines and batteries for electric vehicles and energy storage is starting to become something of a 21st century minerals rush. Apple invented Liam, a line of robots that can quickly disassemble an iPhone 6 and sort its parts for potential recycling. According to the multinational technology firm, two Liam lines can take apart up to 2.4 million phones a year. For some time, it's been recycling aluminium in phones for use in...