JX Nippon Tsuruga Recycle Completes New Facility Construction

JX Nippon Mining & Metals announced on Monday the subsidiary in Fukui, JX Nippon Tsuruga Recycle completed construction of the new facilities for rare metal recycling. By the new facilities, JX Nippon Tsuruga Recycle can collect cobalt, nickel, manganese or lithium from used lithium ion batteries. The recycling capacity for used small appliances expands by 60%. Moreover, the firm can collect cobalt and indium from discharged sludge. The firm invested approximately 1.2 billion yen for the total construction.

The facility to recycle used lithium ion batteries can process positive electrode materials at 50 tonnes per month, collecting 6 tonnes of nickel, 10 tonnes of cobalt, 6 tonnes of manganese and 10 tonnes of lithium carbonate.

The firm also installed additional 2 stationary furnaces to pre-process used substrates and electronic components mounted on small appliances. The processing capacity expanded to 650 tonnes with 6 furnaces from previous 400 tonnes with 4 furnaces. The firm can increase recycling volume of rare metals.

The firm also completed construction of the new facilities to collect cobalt and indium from discharged sludge of electronic component manufacturers. The processing capacity is 30 tonnes per month.

Japanese major rare earth alloy maker, Santoku Corporation has also built the recycling plant to collect dysprosium and neodymium from used motor magnets inside the site of JX Nippon Tsuruga Recycle. JX Nippon Mining & Metals and Santoku Corp will co-hold the opening ceremony for their new recycling plants on April 11.