Technology Minerals says new separation equipment at its Recyclus battery recycling plant in Wolverhampton is now operational, enabling the recovery of copper and aluminium as standalone commercial outputs for the first time.
The upgrade allows black mass, the material produced when recycling lithium batteries containing battery metals such as cobalt, lithium, and nickel, to be separated from copper and aluminium in a single continuous process. The firm says this is a significant step up from previous operations, where copper and aluminium did not provide separate revenue streams.
Based on current LME pricing, the company expects net payable values of approximately £8,000 per tonne for copper and £1,300 per tonne for aluminium, which management said should make a material contribution to revenue per tonne of feedstock processed.
Reprocessing of roughly 180 tonnes of previously processed material held on site has already begun and is expected to be completed within 12 weeks.
The proceeds are expected to repay in full a £100,000 short-term bridge loan provided by Technology Minerals to fund the equipment’s deployment, with repayment due by 20 July.
Technology Minerals is one of the very few companies listed in London that provide exposure to the recycling of critical minerals.
More established players include Majestic Corporation, which focuses on e-waste and generated $49m in revenue in its most recently reported full-year period. Majestic plans to further boost output with the launch of a new facility in Wrexham this year.