Sumitomo Metal Mining has completed a battery recycling plant that recovers and reprocesses rare metals from used automotive batteries, and held a commemorative ceremony on September 11 at its Toyo Plant in Saijo, Ehime Prefecture. About 80 people attended, including officials from METI (the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry), the Ministry of the Environment, and Ehime Prefecture, as well as representatives from partner organizations that have signed partnership agreements with the company.
The plant consists of two sites—the Toyo Plant (Saijo, Ehime Prefecture) and the Niihama Nickel Plant (Niihama, Ehime Prefecture)—with a combined raw material processing capacity of approximately 10,000 tons per year, calculated in terms of battery cells. This marks the first time in Japan that such a facility has operated at commercial scale (according to the company’s own research). The plant processes “black mass,” a concentrate obtained by detoxifying, crushing, and sorting used batteries. A key feature of the process is its combination of dry and wet processing methods, which allows it to handle raw materials containing higher levels of impurities. The high-purity lithium recycling process has been achieved through collaboration with Kanto Denka Kogyo Co., Ltd.
The recovered nickel and cobalt are sent as a high-purity mixed solution to the company’s Isoura Plant (Niihama, Ehime Prefecture), where they are reused as raw materials for cathode materials containing recycled metals. The company’s goal is to achieve “battery-to-battery” closed-loop (bottle-to-bottle style) recycling, in which lithium-ion secondary batteries used in battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and other applications are returned to battery materials through the recycling process. In addition to nickel, cobalt, and lithium, the plant also recovers copper as a base metal. The facility has received support from the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO)’s Green Innovation Fund Project and is currently in the trial operation phase.
Regarding the recycling of automotive batteries, the increase in used batteries accompanying the spread of EVs has made establishing closed-loop recycling—reintegrating materials into the supply chain—an urgent task both in Japan and abroad. The EU’s Battery Regulation sets targets for the content ratio of recycled materials, and in Japan, the “Battery and Power Source Industry Strategy,” revised in June this year, lists the development of systems to promote the reuse and recycling of storage batteries as a policy priority. The company’s integrated business structure, spanning mining and smelting through to the manufacturing of battery materials, could prove to be a strength in directly returning recycled raw materials to cathode material production.
[Reference release] Sumitomo Metal Mining Co., Ltd., “Commemorative Ceremony Held for Completion of Battery Recycling Plant“
