Thetford Mines | A second life for 200 tonnes of electronic waste

Quebec could become a world leader in the recovery of electronic waste, with the opening within a year of a pilot plant in Thetford Mines which will be able to process up to 200 tonnes of printed circuits annually to extract the metals.

Ultimately, we want to build a commercial plant by 2025 capable of processing up to 5000 tonnes of waste, an investment estimated at 150 million.

Initially, the $13 million pilot plant project is being led by a new company, enim, co-founded by two partners in this field, the Montreal engineering firm Seneca and the Toronto mining company Dundee. The pilot plant, which will employ about fifty people, will be housed in the Thetford Mines facilities of a subsidiary of the latter, Dundee Sustainable Technologies.

The firm enim (palindrome of “mine”) is managed by Simon Racicot-Daignault, at the head of a subsidiary of Hydro-Québec, InnovHQ, from June 2020 to last April. “One of our great strengths are our two partners, people who have very strong technical and operational experience,” he explains. Seneca is notably part of the Recyclage Lithion consortium, which has developed a process for recycling automotive lithium-ion batteries. As for Dundee Sustainable Technologies, it specializes in the extraction and decontamination of ore.

Between 95 and 99% extraction

The objective of this pilot plant in Thetford Mines: to validate on an industrial level a patented process, with a small footprint, for the extraction of different metals present in printed circuits. These printed circuits will come from the Quebec program for recycling electronic devices, these “Serpuarians” of which 175,000 tonnes have been recovered since 2012. The printed circuits, “are essentially sent to the Horne Foundry to be burned there”, explains Mr. Racicot-Daignault. Some of these circuits are also sent to recyclers like eCycle, Quantum Lifecycle and FCM Recycling.

It was in the laboratories of the Center for the Study of Chemical Processes of Quebec (CEPROCQ, associated with the Collège de Maisonneuve) that a process of rarely achieved efficiency was developed. Based on hydrometallurgy, it makes it possible to extract from printed circuits “between 95 and 99%” of metals such as gold, silver, platinum, palladium, copper and aluminium.

The transition from the laboratory to industrial validation is one of the great challenges that awaits enim. Its CEO does not doubt to demonstrate the profitability of the process. “All of our analysis shows profitability, and our tests confirmed it. A company may well be eco-responsible, but it is not sustainable if it is not profitable. We are aware that without profitability, there is no tomorrow. »

7500 Eiffel towers

Apart from purely accounting considerations, Mr. Racicot-Daignault believes that recycling electronic waste is an unavoidable environmental challenge. “There is a whole current in society, we see it with the discussion around the Horne Foundry. Society is ripe for a broader discussion, and it can’t just be about economics. »

While environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria are increasingly present for business managers, the CEO of enim believes that the metals that will be recycled will have an added value that will make them more attractive. Last April, a giant like Apple, for example, announced that 20% of the materials used for its electronic devices were recycled, that for the first time certified recycled gold was being used and that the use of cobalt, tungsten and recycled rare earths had doubled.

“Our ambition is not only Quebec, it is truly global: we know that the raw material will go on increasing, the forecasts are staggering, underlines the CEO of enim. According to UN projections, 75 million tonnes of electronic waste will be generated annually in 2030, the equivalent of 7,500 Eiffel towers. »