Canada-based Nouveau Monde plans to recycle its active anode graphite flake while developing its sustainable graphite project, company founder Eric Desaulniers has told Fastmarkets.
Nouveau Monde has set up a partnership with lithium-ion battery recycling company Lithion Recycling, also based in Canada, to reclaim the graphite that would normally be unusable when battery anode materials are recycled.
"Graphite is usually lost in the process of recycling nickel and cobalt from batteries, and used as a combustible in the standard pyrometallurgical process," Desaulniers told Fastmarkets on Thursday June 10. "However, Lithion will be able to extract used graphite efficiently thanks to its patented hydrometallurgical recycling process."
Desaulniers believes that Nouveau Monde will have an advantage from the use of a thermal purification process.The material to be recycled will come from Nouveau Monde's own anode material plants.
The company plans to
commission its coated spherical purified graphite facility, which is based on thermal purification processing, in the first quarter of 2022, the company said on June 8.
"We expect that the recycled graphite will...