There’s a lot of value in waste; just ask metals processing company Nth Cycle, which has developed a technology to help mining and recycling companies recover every bit of critical minerals from their operations.
The company calls its technology “electro-extraction,” and Nth Cycle’s founder and CEO Megan O’Connor likened it to a water filter in a recent interview with TechCrunch. “We found a way to electrify that,” she explained. “We push an electrical current across that filter, and that electricity that we push across is how we can selectively remove the metals of interest.”
Currently, all signs suggest that metal recovery and recycling will be key to electrifying the economy, especially as so many zero-emission technologies rely on critical minerals: lithium, cobalt, nickel and manganese, which exist in varying but ultimately finite amounts in the natural environment.
To solve this issue, Nth Cycle has developed an electro-extraction system that stands at less than 1,000 square feet and can process five tons of material per day — a key differentiator from big, traditional recyclers that use hydro- and pyrometallurgical techniques that require more capital and generate a greater footprint. The system can accept “black mass,” a powdery waste substance that’s generated from the battery recycling process, and turn that waste into valuable minerals like nickel, cobalt and manganese.
On the mining front, Nth Cycle can work at the front or back end of the mining process,...
Read Full Story: https://news.yahoo.com/nth-cycle-wants-revolutionize-metals-201025778.html
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