Mineral processing equipment manufacturer Metso says it has expanded its lithium hydroxide and other battery chemicals process testing capabilities and opened a new battery materials precursor (pCAM) pilot plant at Pori in Finland where it has its Metso Research Centre.
Metso said the pCAM plant was open for customer trials.
“Pilot run requests for battery minerals like lithium, nickel and cobalt have increased significantly during the last three years,” the company’s hydrometallurgical research and development director, Janne Karonen, said.
“Currently, we are working on several battery black mass recycling and precursor projects and have several lithium and other battery chemicals project pilots on our laboratory schedule.”
Metso says process simulations during piloting support process and equipment design, training and plant operation. The company’s metallurgical digital twin Geminex, based on its proprietary HSC-Sim software for predictive process simulations, uses pilot and real-time plant data to “enrich the simulation model”.
The manufacturer says it has been developing hard-rock lithium soda leaching technologies for 20 years.
“Metso can provide sustainable technology and equipment for the entire lithium, nickel and cobalt production chain – from the mine to battery materials and black mass recycling – with project scopes ranging from equipment packages to plant deliveries,” it says.
