Sumitomo Metal Mining Co. has finished building two battery recycling plants, the company announced. The plants will recover rare metals and other materials from automotive batteries and other sources for recycling. The company said it marks the first such initiative on a commercial scale in Japan.

The plants were built within two facilities in Saijo and Niihama in Ehime Prefecture, and a completion ceremony was held on Sept. 11, according to the announcement.

The plants will recover and recycle rare metals, including nickel, cobalt and lithium, from used batteries and other materials collected from automakers. The company will also work on recycling copper, which continues to see high prices. The plants are expected to be able to process the equivalent of about 10,000 tons of lithium ion battery cells per year.

The plants will process a concentrate, called "black mass," obtained by crushing and sorting used batteries after hazardous materials are removed. Through pyrometallurgical smelting and hydrometallurgical refining, target metals will be separated, recovered and refined.

A high-purity mixture of recovered nickel and cobalt will be reused in cathodes for batteries, while copper will be reused in automotive wiring. For lithium recycling, the plant will also use Kanto Denka Kogyo Co.'s high-purity recycling technology.

There is a growing movement, particularly in Europe, to get manufacturers to recycle used batteries. Sumitomo Metal Mining has been developing its technology with the aim of realizing "horizontal recycling," in which it would use old automotive batteries to make new batteries.

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This article is from The Yomiuri Shimbun. Neither Dow Jones Newswires, MarketWatch, Barron's nor The Wall Street Journal were involved in the creation of this content.

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