Canadian steelmaker Stelco Holdings Inc. is drawing up plans to construct a recycling plant for electrical autos and EV batteries at its Lake Erie Works in Nanticoke, Ont.

The corporate mentioned Dec. 31 it had signed an settlement with German-Australian agency Primobius to license a two-step recycling course of used to shred spent lithium-ion batteries and recuperate worthwhile metals for reuse.

Stelco CEO Alan Kestenbaum mentioned the “closed loop system” will increase the Hamilton-based agency’s footprint in automotive, including new streams of battery supplies. The proposed plant can even generate tens of hundreds of tons of scrap metal the corporate can reuse in its steelmaking operations.

“Stelco will be capable of recycle end-of-life electrical autos, convert them into inexperienced metal and recuperate from their batteries excessive purity metals comparable to lithium, nickel, cobalt and manganese,” Kestenbaum mentioned in a launch.

Primobius, a three way partnership made up of German industrial agency SMS Group and Australian speciality metals firm Neometals Ltd., commissioned an preliminary demonstration recycling facility in Europe in December.

The corporate’s course of breaks batteries down into their constituent plastic and steel elements throughout its first stage. An built-in hydrometallurgical refinery processes the black mass — made up of the precious lithium, nickel, cobalt and manganese — in part two, readying it for reuse in new batteries.

Phrases of the licensing deal weren’t disclosed, however Stelco mentioned it can function beneath a royalty system until Primobius workouts its possibility to amass between 25 and 50 per cent of the steelmaker’s new EV battery recycling enterprise.

With the settlement in place, the Ontario-based agency plans to start detailed engineering and allowing for the proposed plant, in addition to advance talks with suppliers of end-of-life batteries for feedstock. It didn’t share projected prices.

Stelco is concentrating on 2023 for beginning up preliminary operations on the facility in Nanticoke, situated alongside Lake Erie about 110 kilometres southwest of Toronto. The proposed web site would have capability to provide shut to twenty,000 tons of nickel, manganese, cobalt and lithium per 12 months, in addition to roughly 40,000 tons of scrap metal.