As of next year Lithion Recycling, a company focused on clean tech will be able to recover 95 percent of electric vehicle batteries in Montreal.
According to the company’s president Benoit Couture, they found a way to recycle components of the car’s batteries in a more effective way.
After a successful run in the lab, Couture told CTV News that they went to the workshop where they were able to use their cutting-edge technology to recycle battery components.
The process is similar to the one they’ll be using in the incoming Pilot Factory which is planned to open in 2020. The process won’t be using pyrometallurgy and will use hydrometallurgy because it doesn’t consume as much energy and is more efficient.
Normand Mousseau, a professor of physics at Universite de Montreal said that this form of recycling will be big in years to come.
“These things will happen,” he told CTV News. “At least two projects in Quebec are going in that direction. They both say 95 percent of the battery will be recycled. That’s very good.”
“A battery lasts at least 10 years in a car,” he said. “That means in a century, we would still have at least 70 percent of what’s in the batteries, and possibly more if these processes are refined.”
Couture believes that his company has something that others don’t. “There’s a worldwide race,” Couture says. “We patented our project quickly. When I analyze the market, I’m convinced we’re leading the race.”
At the beginning of this year, Lithion Recycling received $3.8 million from the federal government through a program called Sustainable Development Technology Canada.
