The Canadian Battery Metal Supply Chain
The Canadian battery metal supply chain highlights an example of a range of critical rare earth element extraction techniques where innovation is key to maintaining and creating new supply chain opportunities to enable the development of green technologies.
Where innovation is needed most urgently in order to facilitate establishing new rare earth supply chains outside of China, is in the separation process to simplify it and reduce costs. Some progress is being made both in Canada and in Europe and it is just a matter of time now before an optimal separation process technology is defined.
Canadian Battery Metal Extraction Techniques
Avalon Advanced Materials, a mineral development company focused on metals and minerals for use in clean energy and new technology, headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, specialises in critical metals and minerals with growing demand in battery technology.
The company has five critical minerals project across Canada, providing investors with exposure to lithium, rare earths, caesium, tantalum, feldspars, tin and indium, and is also evaluating opportunities to apply new extraction technology to recover rare earths and other metals from acid mine drainage, remediating outstanding environmental liability.
FEATURED EBOOK > Avalon Advanced Materials
Canadian Battery Metals: Developing a Stable Battery Metal Supply Chain in Canada
In this featured eBook we take a look at battery metal exploration and the efforts being made in Canada to strengthen the domestic battery metal supply chain in order to help boost development in the green technology sector.
eBook Contents
- Investing in Ontario’s EV manufacturing and battery supply chain
Victor Fedeli, Ontario’s Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade - The rise of battery metals: A Canadian success story
Avalon Advanced Materials, Toronto-based mineral development company - Alberta and Canada: Preferred mineral producers of the future
The Honourable Sonya Savage, Alberta’s Minister of Energy
Minimising Environmental Impact of Battery Metal Mining
Critical battery metal supply chains are increasingly under strain. However, there is a new avenue to recover these minerals from the wastes contained in closed mine sites, argues Donald Bubar, President and CEO of Avalon Advanced Materials Inc.
Creating a circular economy in the Canadian battery metal mining industry can start by re-activating closed mine sites to study mineral potential in the waste materials and the design of new extraction processes to recover them efficiently while fully remediating the long-term environmental liability.
Avalon Advanced Materials Inc. argue that we should be taking advantage of closed mine sites in Canada where critical minerals have already been mined, but not recovered, and now remain in tailings ponds and waste rock piles and could contain numerous minerals and elements that had no value at the time of initial extraction but do today.
Sustainable Battery Metal Supply Chain Strategies
The global demand for battery metals has doubled since 2020 from just over 300,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) to at least 650,000 tonnes of LCE in 2022 due to rapidly increasing sales of electric vehicles, especially in China.
Fortunately, Canada has the long-term lithium development resources needed and the next steps toward starting sustainable production will involve getting the processing capacity established to produce lithium carbonate and hydroxide at locations near to the resources.