Lithium Australia, Perth, has committed to larger-scale testing of mixed metal dust, or MMD, from alkaline battery recycling after initial small-scale tests showed positive results from retrieved micronutrients, such as zinc and manganese, on greenhouse wheat trials.
The tests, which were carried out at the company’s Envirostream Australia Pty recycling facility in Victoria, showed a “significant uptake” of the metals in wheat on local low-quality soil, Managing Director Adrian Griffin told Bloomberg, though it was a slower process in comparison to fertilizer-grade sulfate products. “We would anticipate that the results would be significantly better than that on more normal soils that we see in the wheat belts in Western Australia,” he said.
“We want to accelerate the trials as rapidly as we can,” Griffin continued. Along with domestic projects, the company is also considering rolling them out offshore. The trial mixtures would remain broad at this stage, rather than tailoring them for particular agricultural products and regions.
For future testing, the company is looking at blending the micronutrients with ammoniated phosphates.
With annual sales totaling around 6,000 tons nationally, alkaline batteries – used in typical household items – are notoriously under-recycled, according to Lithium Australia, citing research showing that 97 percent of batteries end up in landfills.
The company said it did not want to limit itself to recycling only lithium-ion batteries, but added alkaline so as to also eliminate those from landfills.
The company estimates that only 9 percent of lithium-ion batteries are recycled globally, with the Australian rate at less than 3 percent. It estimated that the volume of spent batteries worldwide will grow to 7 million tons a year in the next 10 years and the potential value of metal in domestic spent lithium-ion batteries could reach A$3 billion ($2 billion) a year in the middle of the next decade.