DURING the week Cobalt Blue Holdings put out a presentation on the possibility of extensive global opportunities within the company’s ReMine+ Strategy.
In December, last year, the company signed a memorandum of understanding with Ecocycle Pty Ltd to explore and evaluate opportunities around processing black mass into critical minerals to re-enter the battery supply chain.
Investor relations/ commercial manager for Cobalt Blue, Joel Crane, said through the agreement the company can take rechargeable batteries and process them into a material called ‘black mass’.
“That can then be processed into metal which the Broken Hill Technology Centre can handle,” he said.
“We are approaching the New South Wales Government for help to upgrade the Broken Hill Technology Development Centre as currently it is being used as a demonstration plant.
“We would like to be upgraded to be a commercial facility.
“It would be a place where black mass could be made into materials to make batteries.”
Broken Hill Technology Development Centre manager Adam Randall said staff had been working to develop the black mass on a timeline due to grant funding but now that was completed; making the Broken Hill Centre commercially viable was the next step.
“We are repurposing the plant to make it a small-scale commercial refinery plant,” he said.
“We are working within the battery industry to refine waste and are looking are other industry’s waste which we can recycle similarly.
“It opens to the door for industrial and mining waste streams.”
Mr Randall said this will be another feather in Broken Hill’s cap.
“It’s a good opportunity for the company, for NSW and for Australia,” he said. “It will be the first commercial plant of this nature in Australia and it’s step in the right direction.
“We will develop our technology and create job opportunities.
“It’s a fantastic opportunity for all and another feather in the cap for Broken Hill.”
