ION Quarterly reveals e-waste initiative
Today, our battery recycling Investment Iondrive (ASX: ION) revealed an interesting tidbit in its quarterly report which could be a very promising development for the company.
ION is planning a program “to assess the potential of the DES process for recycling electronic waste, targeting the recovery of gold, silver, palladium, and other valuable metals.”
ION has a unique Deep Eutectic Solvent (DES) process which it has been working on applying to battery recycling via a Pilot Plant to recover battery metals from shredded batteries (black mass).
Basically this means using biodegradable solutions to dissolve the battery waste materials, leaving behind valuable critical metals.
As it's a solvent process - it means no expensive energy-intensive burning - and no nasty acid-based leaching.
We’ve been doing some additional background reading on DES processes - and suffice to say they are shaping up to be a major advancement in the field of chemistry.
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DES processes have really only been around since the early 2000s.
And chemistry as a field has rarely seen major advances such as this.
After reading these scientific papers, we’ve come to the conclusion that ION could well be on the forefront of commercialising a major advancement in the field of chemistry.
As a result, we think that if ION is able to expand into e-waste and/or metal processing, this could add some valuable additional strings to the bow.
Previously, we saw ION expand into a new feedstock, mixed hydroxide precipitate (MHP), which this quarterly also mentions:
ION Completes Recycling Pilot Plant FEED, expands into new feedstock
After today’s update, we are now looking ahead to the following milestones.
What’s next for ION?
ION has completed economic modelling for its pilot plant and ION has a FEED contractor appointed.
Next we want to see the company make progress with the design development for the plant.
ION is planning a Final Investment Decision (FID) for the pilot plant in July of this year, with commissioning on track for late 2025.
We will also be looking for updates on the results from the ongoing optimization tests and semi-continuous testing.
Objective #2: Design and build pilot plant
The pilot plant will set the stage for ION to better develop its technology, and provide potential samples to offtake customers.
Milestones
🔄 Complete design of pilot plant
🔄 Lock in EPCM contract for the build
🔲 Start construction on pilot plant
🔲 Complete pilot plant construction
Source: “What do we expect ION to deliver?” - ION Investment Memo 3 December 2024
(NEW) - Outcomes of MHP testing for critical mineral processing
We are also looking forward to seeing the results from the tests ION will be doing on MHP feedstock.
This sits outside of the objectives we set for ION in our Investment Memo.
BUT a big part of the reason why we Invested in ION was because we believed that at some point its technology could be tested in parallel industries.
(NEW) Innovation pipeline - more types of recycling tech for different critical metals.
We are now looking for further updates on e-waste initiatives out of ION.
ION also has a strategic partnership with the University of Adelaide.
ION will get a first look at any new technologies developed under a $5M grant by the Australian Research Council which is overseen by the two professors that developed ION’s current DES recycling technology.
Source: “Why we Invested in ION” - ION Investment Memo 3 December 2024
