Recyclers urged to tap into existing cobalt stocks

Recycling of cobalt and other key battery metals could be ramped up now given the ample stocks of portable electronics across Europe, establishing a secondary supply chain that will be key to alleviating future deficits, according to panellists at the Cobalt Institute conference in Zurich yesterday.

"Europe has enough portable battery cobalt in its lockers for 750,000 electric vehicles," said Chris Heron, communication and public affairs director at Eurometaux. "It's a resource, especially in this decade as demand ramps up, that we should be using."

Current metal price levels do support the commercial viability of recycling, but a lack of infrastructure has so far held back efforts.

Other panellists encouraged a shift in thinking from consumers as well as businesses. "At home we've all got phones and old laptops," said Craig Woodburn, head of ESG at UK battery manufacturer Britishvolt. "We need to incentivise people to put them back into recycling."

Localisation of recycling hubs

Recycling chains are likely to be localised given carbon concerns, resource scarcity and geopolitical tensions between China and western countries.

"From Britishvolt's point of view, localisation is really important because of environmental sustainability in recycling," Woodburn said. "If you can recover that material close to where you actually use the materials, you reduce carbon intensity even further. "A lot of the UK OEMs, their underlying batteries have to be shipped from Europe or further afield. That creates more carbon intensity so if we can localise that within the UK it creates a whole business."

The recent rise in international cobalt prices, along with disruptions along transit routes between Africa and China, have highlighted the challenges associated with the existing primary market structure, with 74pc of raw cobalt supply coming from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

"What's undervalued still in the discussion is the potential for recycling to be a source of resource security and eventually lead to a level of autonomy, for Europe and other countries to have loops which are reliable and functional," said Heron. "If that was a top priority, EU laws may be set up differently with regards to targets we're making. The business case is there."

Others pointed out that manufacturers could use recycled material to aid their existing primary manufacturing processes, as an additional source of feed.

"Recycling offers value generation," Michael Insulan, vice president of Electra Battery Materials, told delegates. "For us specifically recycling came about from the synergy perspective. When you do primary refining you need to take back material as manufacturing scrap, so ideally you need a recycling facility nearby."

By Thomas Kavanagh