Battery minerals

Enabling a responsible energy transition

Metso is driving a more responsible and sustainable energy transition with its comprehensive coverage of the battery minerals production and recycling processes.

Widest solutions

End-to-end solutions for battery minerals extraction, refinement, and recycling processes

Robust digitalization

Digital tools (Geminex™) for adapting operations based on variability in ore bodies

Proven expertise

Proprietary technology with broad industry know-how and delivery capabilities

Key drivers for battery minerals industry

The growing adoption of electric vehicles is driving rapidly increasing demand for rechargeable batteries and their input commodities - including lithium, cobalt, nickel, graphite, manganese, copper and aluminum.

As society continues to embrace batteries as the more responsible alternative for burning fossil fuels, we need to accept that we can’t just concentrate on the sustainability of individual end user commodities such as EVs. To determine and improve sustainable performance, we need to take a holistic approach and lead the way towards a more responsible overall business ecosystem.

Introducing Metso in Battery Minerals

Metso has a holistic insight into the battery minerals segment, stemming from a comprehensive technological coverage of the entire value chain. We are driving the energy transition from fossil fuels towards sustainable battery powered alternatives with a unique offering for a more responsible value chain from start to finish and beyond. Tomorrow’s battery mineral processes not only need to be more sustainable, but also more transparent, safe and reliable.

From providing new exploration and greenfield sites with state-of-the-art equipment and practices, to helping improve the efficiency of existing brownfield mining and extraction sites, plants and processes, Metso has also developed efficient and responsible processes for recycling minerals from decommissioned batteries.

Metso can now offer complete processes for the battery minerals production from minerals extraction to refined battery chemicals and end-of-life battery black mass recycling.

Multiple minerals and processes

Being responsible means more to us than just designing and offering sustainable technologies for the hard rock mining and brine extraction of battery minerals such as Lithium, Cobalt, Nickel, Copper, Graphite or Manganese.

Metso can provide technology and equipment for the entire lithium, nickel and cobalt production chain from the mine to battery materials with project scope ranging from equipment packages to turnkey plant delivery. Our experts, having broad and deep minerals processing and metallurgical industry knowhow, can offer our customers optimized and reliable process design based on particular raw materials.

Brines – Hydrometallurgical processing

Lithium extraction and processing can depend heavily upon the source of the metal. Most commercial lithium extraction is from brines through a process of evaporation and chemical recovery. With a decade of experience in the processing of Lithium ores and brines Metso is a strong partner for the development of projects and delivering of plant and equipment solutions.

Spodumene – Concentrator plant and hydrometallurgical LiOH process

Metso provides the path to optimized solutions and complete plants for the production of high-purity lithium salts. Our innovative and proven calcination, leaching, purification and lithium recovery technologies cover the whole range of production, from raw materials to battery grade lithium products: most importantly Lithium Hydroxide Monohydrate and Lithium Carbonate.

Metso’s proprietary technology offers a short-cut process concept for spodumene concentrates: direct alkaline leach process for lithium extraction and solubilization, followed by crystallization of the lithium salt product. Furthermore, the leach process is environmentally sustainable: acid & sulphate free, without undesired crystallized salts or by-products, producing inert & neutral mineral residue for re-use or disposal.

Nickel and Cobalt - hydrometallurgical processing

Nickel and cobalt can be found from different type of ore bodies with most typical being lateritic and sulfidic ores. Quite often these mineralogies hold both nickel and cobalt, but cobalt is often also found together with copper. Both metals can also be found from several refined raw materials, like nickel matte or sulfide, from which the battery raw material refining can start.

Black mass - Battery recycling process

The Battery black mass recycling process treats batteries after mechanical separation and optional thermal treatment for the recovery of nickel, cobalt and lithium, as well as optionally manganese and copper. The process flowsheet can also be tailored according to the feed materials and desired end products with possible phased approach, starting with recovering the most valuable metals.