St-Bruno-de-Montarville, Quebec — Lithion Technologies (Lithion) has announced the completion of the construction of its first commercial critical mineral extraction plant, Lithion Saint-Bruno, located in St-Bruno-de-Montarville, Quebec.
The company, which develops, deploys and operates sustainable and innovative patented technologies to recycle lithium-ion batteries and create a circular supply of strategic materials, has completed the plant after several months of set-up.
According to a recent press release, “every piece of equipment has been installed, many of which were tailor-made to suit the company’s unique technologies and processes.”
As a result, Lithion is now in the commissioning phase to ensure its innovative and patented processes operate safely and effectively.
Currently, the plant has a team of 20 employees and at full capacity, is expected to employ 60 people.
The press release further noted that the opening of this plant marks the first step in Lithion’s vision of enabling the whole world to be powered by green technology.
The Lithion Saint-Bruno plant will perform the first of a two-step recycling process. At the plant, the extraction of the critical minerals concentrate, black mass—made from lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese and graphite—will occur.
From here, the second step involves a hydrometallurgy process to separate and purify the black mass to produce materials of a higher quality so that they can be looped back into the production of new batteries.
Lithion is currently in the process of selecting a site for this second step.
“What an exciting achievement to have completed the construction of our first commercial plant,” said Benoit Couture, President and CEO of Lithion.
“It’s a major milestone towards the realization of our dream of sustainably closing the loop of battery materials. And this is just the beginning. We will build more recycling plants, supplied by a network of battery collection and storage facilities, across Canada, the United States, and Europe to ensure the energy transition is a sustainable solution for the generations to come.”
