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Johnston","the-bottleneck-in-the-industry-is-on-the-refining-capacity-qa-with-li-cycle-co-founder-tim-johnston","article/the-bottleneck-in-the-industry-is-on-the-refining-capacity-qa-with-li-cycle-co-founder-tim-johnston",{"_uid":547,"date":548,"tags":549,"editor":559,"content":569,"excerpt":752,"featured":51,"reporter":753,"_editable":757,"component":758,"seo_title":543,"categories":759,"visibility":766,"author_company":49,"featured_image":767,"seo_description":752,"author_full_name":49,"author_job_title":49,"formattedDate":773,"formattedArticleDate":774},"46388b9b-8b2e-4224-957c-e0aa851bb6e6","2023-10-04 00:00",[550,553,556],{"slug":551,"name":552},"europe","Europe",{"slug":554,"name":555},"li-cycle","Li-Cycle",{"slug":557,"name":558},"qa","Q&A",[560],{"slug":561,"name":562,"content":563},"didi-bostock","Didi Bostock",{"job_title":564,"image":565,"bio":567,"linkedin":568},"Editor - Energy Transition & Economics",{"filename":566},"https://a.storyblok.com/f/287943243085208/512x512/2c5ca5c1a3/didi-bostock.jpeg","Didi is the Energy Transition & Economics Editor at Benchmark, covering a broad range of markets across the energy transition. His remit spans from downstream sectors such as BESS and EVs, through to midstream such as new technologies and battery production, to upstream critical minerals mining. He also leads on financial analysis across these supply chains, alongside in-depth policy analysis.\n","https://www.linkedin.com/in/didi-bostock-656342198/",{"type":570,"content":571},"doc",[572,579,584,599,604,611,616,621,626,631,636,641,646,651,664,669,682,687,692,697,702,707,712,717,722,727,732,737,742,747],{"type":573,"attrs":574,"content":575},"paragraph",{"textAlign":49},[576],{"text":577,"type":578},"Li-Cycle, a Toronto headquartered lithium ion battery recycling company, last week opened a pre-processing facility in Magdeburg, Germany.","text",{"type":573,"attrs":580,"content":581},{"textAlign":49},[582],{"text":583,"type":578},"The company deploys a spoke and hub system, whereby used lithium ion batteries are collected and sent to spokes where they are shredded into black mass. This black mass is then sent to centralised hub facilities which process the material into battery-grade materials such as lithium carbonate.",{"type":573,"attrs":585,"content":586},{"textAlign":49},[587,589,597],{"text":588,"type":578},"The German spoke is its first operational facility in Europe and will eventually feed black mass to a ",{"text":590,"type":578,"marks":591},"proposed hub facility in Portovesme",[592],{"type":593,"attrs":594},"link",{"href":595,"uuid":49,"anchor":49,"target":49,"linktype":596},"https://source.benchmarkminerals.com/article/glencore-and-li-cycle-plan-to-build-europes-largest-battery-recycling-hub-in-italy","url",{"text":598,"type":578},", Italy, that the company is developing with Glencore.",{"type":573,"attrs":600,"content":601},{"textAlign":49},[602],{"text":603,"type":578},"Benchmark Source sat down with Tim Johnston, Li-Cycle’s executive chairman and co-founder, to talk about the company’s move into Europe.",{"type":605,"attrs":606,"content":608},"heading",{"level":607,"textAlign":49},4,[609],{"text":610,"type":578},"How important is the Magdeburg, Germany site to Li-Cycle’s European ambitions?",{"type":573,"attrs":612,"content":613},{"textAlign":49},[614],{"text":615,"type":578},"This facility here in Magdeburg, Germany is really the cornerstone of our plans for European expansion. At the end of the day, everyone thinks of Europe and they think of the automotive sector within Germany. And where we are here in Magdeburg is right at the heart of automotive manufacturing, which is now becoming the heart of cell manufacturing and the whole ecosystem that surrounds electric vehicles.",{"type":573,"attrs":617,"content":618},{"textAlign":49},[619],{"text":620,"type":578},"Today in Magdeburg, we’re starting with one line. We saw that there was such a strong demand for recycling of lithium battery materials in this part of the world that we accelerated our plans and will actually have a second line operating here by the end of the year.",{"type":605,"attrs":622,"content":623},{"level":607,"textAlign":49},[624],{"text":625,"type":578},"What are the biggest challenges for Li-Cycle operating in Europe?",{"type":573,"attrs":627,"content":628},{"textAlign":49},[629],{"text":630,"type":578},"Europe is a very fast growing ecosystem. It’s also relatively complex from a compliance and legislative framework perspective. And so for us, we’ve had to navigate how to actually deploy our assets here in Europe. ",{"type":573,"attrs":632,"content":633},{"textAlign":49},[634],{"text":635,"type":578},"You know, it’s interesting when you look at the fact that we’ve been successful in being able to install and start up a facility here in Germany. It gives us a lot of confidence to be able to now replicate that model in other countries within Europe because Germany has a high standard as you would expect, for the processing of these types of materials, which by the way they should do. But now that we’ve done that here, we have a much better understanding of the framework within Europe, where there’s now similarities that we can now apply in other parts of Europe and so we’re seeing this in Norway, and in France, and now you’re looking further west, into Hungary.",{"type":605,"attrs":637,"content":638},{"level":607,"textAlign":49},[639],{"text":640,"type":578},"Can you get iron out of an LFP battery or graphite from anodes?",{"type":573,"attrs":642,"content":643},{"textAlign":49},[644],{"text":645,"type":578},"When it comes to recycling LFP batteries the key target metal, of course, is the lithium component. The iron, phosphorus and the graphite are all secondary materials. They might have some residual value, but it’s relatively minor.",{"type":605,"attrs":647,"content":648},{"level":607,"textAlign":49},[649],{"text":650,"type":578},"So, if LFP becomes more prevalent does that negatively impact Li-Cycle?",{"type":573,"attrs":652,"content":653},{"textAlign":49},[654,656,662],{"text":655,"type":578},"We can’t wait. It’s definitely happening. I mean, our forecasts have really expanded what we see as the LFP portion of the market by the end of the decade. We’re now forecasting that it could be, you know, a third, maybe a little bit more of the ",{"text":657,"type":578,"marks":658},"European market by the end of the decade being LFP",[659],{"type":593,"attrs":660},{"href":661,"uuid":49,"anchor":49,"target":49,"linktype":596},"https://source.benchmarkminerals.com/article/the-rise-of-lfp-batteries-outside-of-china",{"text":663,"type":578}," and one of the key benefits for us is that, of course, we’re focused on the recovery of the lithium units. You know, when I look at an LFP battery, I’m looking at a material that has inherently a grade that’s better than most natural resources that exist in the world and so we see it as a valuable resource and a valuable commodity. It will become even more valuable as the scale of the LFP market grows as well.",{"type":605,"attrs":665,"content":666},{"level":607,"textAlign":49},[667],{"text":668,"type":578},"Are you able to sell the battery-grade end products you get from your hub facilities at a premium to traditionally produced materials?",{"type":573,"attrs":670,"content":671},{"textAlign":49},[672,674,680],{"text":673,"type":578},"So we don’t forecast into our models any premiums for recycled material. There’s plenty of people out there that would argue that particularly around 2027, when some of these ",{"text":675,"type":578,"marks":676},"minimum recycle content targets",[677],{"type":593,"attrs":678},{"href":679,"uuid":49,"anchor":49,"target":49,"linktype":596},"https://source.benchmarkminerals.com/article/can-the-eu-meet-its-proposed-battery-metals-recycling-targets",{"text":681,"type":578}," come into place, that there won’t be enough recycled material, which will ultimately drive a premium for that recycled content. I can definitely see a world where that exists. Do we bank on it? No. Will we work within the framework that exists within the economy then? Absolutely.",{"type":605,"attrs":683,"content":684},{"level":607,"textAlign":49},[685],{"text":686,"type":578},"How would you contrast the policy and legislative environments of Europe, the US and China?",{"type":573,"attrs":688,"content":689},{"textAlign":49},[690],{"text":691,"type":578},"I mean, it’s a good question. Are we actually competing with China? I don’t think that we are here in Europe today. Primarily because the European market, and this is one of the key differences between the North American and the European market, is that the European market is being built on a regulatory framework that is focused on keeping the materials here in Europe to be reprocessed and put back into a local battery supply chain. Whereas in North America, it’s much more of a capitalist driven market, whereby the best price will win.",{"type":573,"attrs":693,"content":694},{"textAlign":49},[695],{"text":696,"type":578},"And so, here what we see is that lithium ion battery materials, including black mass starting next year, they’ll be classified as hazardous waste materials, and you won’t be able to export them to non-OECD countries. And so if you think about which countries are now going to come off the export list for lithium ion battery materials from Europe, you’re looking at Indonesia, Morocco, some of these traditional countries that, to be frank, there’s been a lot of desire for the from the East to invest in these countries to develop refining style assets. So we see it as ultimately beneficial for Li-Cycle.",{"type":573,"attrs":698,"content":699},{"textAlign":49},[700],{"text":701,"type":578},"In North America, I think one of the key things that is going to continue to shift in that market is the desire for the original owners of the material to have the traceability of where their materials are going and then getting them back into their supply chain and being able to say that they truly are recycled. They’ve been recycled sustainably, because of course not all recycling processes are equal. And so from our perspective, I think there’s a couple of significant tail winds that are really helping the Li-Cycle business.",{"type":605,"attrs":703,"content":704},{"level":607,"textAlign":49},[705],{"text":706,"type":578},"Li-Cycle uses a hydrometallurgical process at the hub, and the spokes use a submerged shredding method. Do you have plans to expand into different methods such as direct recycling?",{"type":573,"attrs":708,"content":709},{"textAlign":49},[710],{"text":711,"type":578},"I’m a fundamental nonbeliever of direct recycling. And that comes back to the same challenge that we’ve been facing as primary producers in the lithium industry for the last two decades. And that is how do you achieve product quality consistently that is actually attainable for putting back into lithium ion batteries to avoid quality issues that would ultimately result in expensive recalls and other problems.",{"type":573,"attrs":713,"content":714},{"textAlign":49},[715],{"text":716,"type":578},"The issue with direct recycling is that you’re starting with a heavily contaminated material, and you’re relying on separation methods that are imperfect in order to purify the material. When you look at this, it would be the analogy of trying to take the lithium material that we mine and then simply try to do separation and then ultimately separate out and isolate the lithium component or lithium oxide from the deposit. It’s not done that way because you can’t achieve consistently at scale the quality that you need to go back into a lithium ion battery.",{"type":573,"attrs":718,"content":719},{"textAlign":49},[720],{"text":721,"type":578},"This is why we leach the materials, why we actually go through hydrogeological refining to get those materials back.",{"type":605,"attrs":723,"content":724},{"level":607,"textAlign":49},[725],{"text":726,"type":578},"Within the battery recycling ecosystem, where do you view the bottlenecks? Will spokes be struggling for material, or will the hub capacity be an issue?",{"type":573,"attrs":728,"content":729},{"textAlign":49},[730],{"text":731,"type":578},"We do look at it as two separate markets. We see the pre-processing on the spoke side of the business. The reality is that business exists in order to service our major most strategic clients and customers that produce waste that is not black mass.",{"type":573,"attrs":733,"content":734},{"textAlign":49},[735],{"text":736,"type":578},"Ultimately, the bottleneck in the industry is on the refining capacity. There is not enough refining capacity being built to process the amount of black mass that is coming out of the market. This is why we accelerated our plans and Portovesme to bring forward phase one, next year we’ll start processing 11,000 tonnes per year of black mass. We’re going to scale that ultimately to about 70,000 tonnes per year of black mass. That’s twice as big as the facility that we’re building in North America today. Right. So why are we doing that? It’s because we see this gap in the market when it comes to refining black mass.",{"type":605,"attrs":738,"content":739},{"level":607,"textAlign":49},[740],{"text":741,"type":578},"Is that the same in all markets?",{"type":573,"attrs":743,"content":744},{"textAlign":49},[745],{"text":746,"type":578},"We see that definitely in North America and Europe. There’s definitely a lot of money that’s been put into refining assets in Asia, particularly Korea, Indonesia and China. China’s a hard one because China, you can’t technically import black mass into there because of the carbon content, it fails the waste rules. So really, the competition then becomes Korea and Indonesia.",{"type":573,"attrs":748,"content":749},{"textAlign":49},[750],{"text":751,"type":578},"One of the things that I think is going to become more prevalent is really about what method they’re using in order to process that material when it comes to the automotive industry, in particular, looking down their supply chain and looking for sustainable processes. The reality is, is that there’s aspects of the recycling world today that have not taken an environmentally centred approach to recycling and so those, let’s say, legacy processes and ways of doing things, I think will slowly move to a segment of the market that’s not associated with the tier one automotive sector, which is really our core market.","Li-Cycle, a Toronto headquartered lithium ion battery recycling company, last week opened a pre-processing facility in Magdeburg, Germany. The company deploys a spoke and hub system, whereby used lithium ion batteries are collected and sent to spokes where they are shredded into black mass. This black mass is then sent to centralised hub facilities which […]",[754],{"slug":561,"name":562,"content":755},{"job_title":564,"image":756,"bio":567,"linkedin":568},{"filename":566},"\u003C!--#storyblok#{\"name\": \"article\", \"space\": \"\", \"uid\": \"46388b9b-8b2e-4224-957c-e0aa851bb6e6\", \"id\": \"\"}-->","article",[760,763],{"slug":761,"name":762},"recycling","Recycling",{"slug":764,"name":765},"sustainability","Sustainability","private",{"id":49,"alt":768,"name":769,"focus":769,"title":768,"source":769,"filename":770,"copyright":769,"fieldtype":771,"meta_data":772,"is_external_url":51},"Photograph of Tim Johnston standing outside.","","https://a.storyblok.com/f/287943243085208/3ec98988fd/bm-tim-johnston-headshot.jpg","asset",{"alt":768,"title":768,"source":769,"copyright":769},"Oct 04, 2023","4th October 2023",[],[],1781512941908]