Electricity and Control November 2024

ENGINEERING THE FUTURE

Waste to wealth: critical material recovery from secondary sources

D r Jack Howley, Technology Analyst at UK-based research organisation IDTechEx, says end-of-life equipment from automotive vehicles, electric vehicles, e-waste and decarbonised energy technologies is rapidly emerging as a secondary raw material source for valuable critical materials. Howley refers to IDTechEx’s new report, Critical Material Recovery 2025-2045: Technologies, Markets, Players, which forecasts that US$110 billion of critical materials will be recovered annually from secondary sources by 2045, with a combined weight of over 3.3 million tonnes. The report looks closely at secondary source critical material recovery technologies, markets, key players, and evolving value chains. Technical innovations are explored across four prominent critical material segments, including lithium-ion battery technology metals, rare-earth elements, platinum group metals, and semiconductors. IDTechEx predicts that the critical material recovery market will grow at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 12.7% from 2025 to 2045. Critical material recovery from secondary sources seeks to alleviate growing global material supply risks and their impact on regional economies. Critical materials, such as lithium, nickel, cobalt, rare-earth elements, platinum group metals, silicon, and other semiconductors underpin all modern technology. However, the high level of localisation geographically of critical material market supply chains – both primary critical mineral deposits and processing steps – presents major risks to many economies. These factors are creating a strong market pull for critical material recovery technology that uses secondary raw materials as an alternative to primary sources. Secondary raw materials are valuable sources for critical material recovery. Global megatrends in mass digitalisation across consumer, transport, energy, communication, and industrial sectors have consolidated large volumes of critical materials into devices and equipment. As a result, the content of critical materials in anthropogenically derived sources is often higher than in primary mineral deposits. As the volume of critical material containing equipment reaching end of life increases year-on-year, the secondary source stream for critical material recovery becomes more valuable. The IDTechEx report evaluates the critical material market, analysing the content of key secondary sources and forecasting the volume of secondary raw materials recoverable by 2045. Howley highlights that critical material recovery technolo gies are largely ready to go; it is just a question of how eas ily they can be repurposed for secondary material sources. Critical material extraction and recovery technologies pio neered for primary mineral processing are scalable with high recovery efficiency, so they are well-positioned for deploy ment in secondary source streams. A major challenge in deployment remains adapting the processes to the distinct composition of secondary materials, which contain complex mixtures of critical materials with plastics, adhesives, films, low-value metals,

and inorganic material. This report evaluates 13 critical material extraction and recovery technologies, providing case studies on their commercial application in secondary sources. Looking forward, critical platinum group metals (PGM) recovery from secondary sources will dominate market value share in 2025, but Li-ion battery technology metal and rare-earth elements markets will emerge soon after that. The high market value of palladium, platinum, and rhodium and their high density in automotive scrap has defined the established PGM secondary source market for decades. However, growing consolidation of critical materials in decarbonised energy and transport technologies will drive a significant value transfer into their associated applications. As growing quantities of electric vehicles reach their end of life by 2045, lithium, nickel, cobalt, and manganese from batteries and rare-earth elements from drive motor magnets will emerge to represent the largest source of recoverable value. The new report Critical Material Recovery 2025-2045: Technologies, Markets, Players leverages IDTechEx’s cross-discipline expertise in critical advanced materials, sustainability, and recycling technologies. The team of an alysts builds on decades of experience covering emerging technology markets dependent on critical materials, includ ing batteries, energy storage, electric vehicles, the hydro gen economy, and semiconductors. The report provides market intelligence about critical material recovery technologies for four key secondary source segments. It also characterises globally identified emerging critical materials and the associated emerging secondary source recovery opportunities. This includes: - A review of the context and technology behind critical material recovery from secondary sources - Full market characterisation of critical material recov ery technology in key secondary source segments - Market analysis throughout. Critical material extraction and recovery technologies and key critical material market segments covered in the report. [Source: IDTechEx]

For more information visit: www.IDTechEx.com

NOVEMBER 2024 Electricity + Control

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