Chemical Engineering May 2021 - 5

Chementator
Bespoke battery recycling
A
proprietary hydrometallurgical process
known as Re-2Ox -originally
conceived for the production
of high-grade cobalt sulfate from
mineral resources - is now showing promise
in the field of battery recycling. " We did
some preliminary test work and the technology
was amenable to batteries. The
intent is to process not just primary feed,
but also secondary feed, which is all the
different battery products, including lithium
ion, nickel cadmium and nickel hydride. We
take all these secondary feeds and break
down the batteries into usable materials, "
explains Frank Basa, CEO of Canada Silver
Cobalt Works Inc. (Coquitlam, B.C., Canada;
www.canadasilvercobaltworks.com).
The basis for Re-2Ox is an acid-leaching
process that is both zero-discharge and
potentially carbon-neutral, adds Basa, noting
that the Re-2Ox pilot program being run
at SGS Canada's Lakefield location runs on
solar and hydroelectric power. The company
is planning to continue building out the current
pilot program and construct a dedicated
pilot plant in northern Ontario, which will become
the first hydrometallurgical batteryrecycling
facility in North America.
What sets the Re-2Ox process apart is
its versatility to match a wide variety of secondary
battery feedstocks with customized
end-product requirements. " Typically, we
start with two months of testing to see what
builds up in these recycled streams, since
the batteries we process are not all consisRe-2Ox
Process Flowsheet
ETHYLENE
Primary metal (EV, rare earths
(REE)), alkali metals
Mineral
separation
Sand tailings
Black mass
Secondary metals
(battery recycling)
Physical
processing
Reactor 1
(leaching)
Arsenic, bismuth,
antimony
Reactor 2 (leaching)
Recycle
solution
EV metals
production
REE + alkali
metals
Canada Silver Cobalt Works
tent, " explains Basa. To eliminate process
waste, the company tries to ensure that it
can make use of all components that are
present in the battery feeds they receive,
from arsenic to rare-earth metals to organic
compounds. " We are currently working with
a large recycler that is interested in mainly
recovering rare-earths from a largely nickelhydride-based
feed. We have a modified
reactor with a special accumulator for rareearths,
which we are recovering as a bulk
product to be sent elsewhere for further processing, "
adds Basa.
Demonstration for a new process
to make isobutene
ast month, OMV AG (Vienna, Austria;
www.omv.com) commissioned
its ISO C4 demonstration isobutene
plant at its Burghausen, Germany
site. The plant is based on technology
developed jointly by OMV and BASF SE
(Ludwigshafen, Germany; www.basf.com),
and has been producing high-purity (up to
99.9%) isobutene since the end of 2020.
The plant is said to have an " exceptional "
energy efficiency - up to 80% of the heating
energy required for the new process
can be met by thermal discharge from an
existing associated facility thanks to a heatintegration
approach. This saves 20,000
metric tons of CO2 emissions per year, the
companies say. A worldwide patent application
was filed jointly by the two companies,
and the process will now be available
to third parties, says BASF.
L
BASF provides the catalyst and reaction
concept that intrinsically fulfills all process
requirements by OMV. The new unit for the
production of high-purity isobutene, which
does not need chemical conversion of isobutene,
has been integrated into the existing
metathesis plant at OMV's Burghausen
site. The isobutene produced here complements
OMV's existing
product portfolio
and will be used for manufacturing glues,
grease and other chemicals, such as antioxidants,
as well as in the production of
vitamin C. The plant's production capacity
is 60,000 ton/yr.
Investment volume of this large-scale
project, including auxiliary
facilities, was
€64 million. Germany's Federal Ministry of
the Environment subsidized €2.8 million toward
the ISO C4 plant as part of its environmental
innovation program.
CHEMICAL ENGINEERING WWW.CHEMENGONLINE.COM MAY 2021
Plastic and steel
recovery
EV + REE
concentrate
Byproduct recovery
Filter cake to offsite
processing
Recycle
solution
Toyo Engineering Corp.
(Chiba, Japan; www.
toyo-eng.com) has been
awarded a contract for
a project to construct
an ethylene pilot plant,
using waste-derived
ethanol as raw material.
The project is planned
by Sumitomo Chemical
Co. at its Chiba Works.
Sumitomo Chemical
has established a cooperative
relationship with
Sekisui Chemical Co. for
the implementation of
the technology to manufacture
polyolefins using
waste as raw material.
Sumitomo will begin pilot
production of the highpurity
ethylene - the raw
material for polyolefin
- using waste-derived
ethanol to be produced
by Sekisui Chemical from
the fiscal year 2022.
Toyo has worked with
Sumitomo Chemical
since the basic design of
the plant and is currently
carrying out the detailed
engineering, procurement,
and construction
(EPC)
lump-sum
contract, aiming to start
demonstration operation
of the plant for a short period.
The project is slated
for completion in 2022.
BIOPLASTIC
Four Finnish companies
- Finnfoam Oy (Salo;
www. finnfoam.com),
Brightplus Oy (Tampere,
Suomi; www.brightplus.
com), VTT Technical Research
Centre of Finland
(Espoo; www.vttresearch.
com) and Nordic Soya
Oy (Uusikaupunki; www.
nordicsoya.com) - have
developed a process to
produce compostable
bioplastic from foodand-feed
production side
streams. The process was
developed in the course of
a four-year research project
that was partly funded
(Continues on p. 6)
5
Edited by:
Gerald Ondrey
http://www.toyo-eng.com http://www.canadasilvercobaltworks.com http://www.omv.com http://www.finnfoam.com http://www.brightplus http://www.basf.com http://www.vttresearch http://www.nordicsoya.com http://WWW.CHEMENGONLINE.COM
Chemical Engineering May 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Chemical Engineering May 2021
