The efficiency of electric car motors is not only based on lithium batteries, but also on permanent magnets made of rare earths, the production of which is largely dominated by China. A company from the South Shore in the Montreal region is taking new steps this year to develop this sector in Quebec.
These magnets are found in wind turbines, cell phones and computer hard drives, in addition to electric vehicle motors. They are composed not only of iron, but also of neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium and terbium, which are part of the group of rare earths. In Quebec, these minerals are generally lost when the devices go to scrap metal, underlines the president and CEO of Geomega, Kiril Mugerman.
“There are companies that collect magnets in North America, but since there are no places to process them elsewhere, it is sent to Asia, especially to China, where there are treatments with l hydrochloric acid,” says Mugerman.
His company intends to give new life to these magnets right here in Quebec, within a year. It has already stored several tons of it in order to run its future recycling plant in Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville, which should receive its equipment in the coming months. This factory of 930 m2 (10,000 ft2), which is almost two years late, is more than 50% financed by a loan from the Quebec government.
To achieve its objective, Geomega could not copy and paste what is done in China. “It would be very expensive, and we would be caught with residues [issus du traitement], which should be stored in parks. From an economic and environmental point of view, it wouldn’t pass the test,” Mugerman explains.
Therefore, since 2018, the Geomega team has been working on the development and testing of a chemical treatment and filtration process, which allows the reuse of liquid reagents in the process. Iron is also captured in a form that allows its reuse. The magnets are crushed and sent to a succession of machines from which they emerge in the form of a rare earth powder, which can be resold to manufacturers at market value. “Rare earths come out of there like they come out of a mine,” says Mugerman.
As there is no production of rare earth magnets in Canada and it is just beginning in the United States, Geomega’s product will necessarily be sold abroad, especially in Europe initially. By processing 1.5 tons of minerals a day, Mr. Mugerman calculates that the company’s sales could reach $30 million in the first year, given that the price of rare earths has soared over the past two years.
Bauxite recycling
Geomega will also be busy in the coming months with a pilot project to recycle another material — bauxite residue — from aluminum smelters. The project is notably financed by Rio Tinto, the provincial government and the federal government. The aim is to recover the residues created by the extraction of alumina, which is a mixture of minerals such as iron, titanium and silica, so that they can be reused rather than stored by industry.
“There are a lot of commonalities between our technologies for recycling rare earths and bauxite residues,” says Mugerman. We are able to reuse some equipment between the two pilot projects. »
Over the past seven years, hydrometallurgical processes have evolved. It is time to demonstrate that we can reduce the environmental footprint for Montviel and lower operating costs.
Geomega’s ambitions do not stop there. The company has just relaunched its rare earth mine project at the Montviel site, in Abitibi-Témiscamingue, in particular thanks to a $400,000 grant from the Quebec Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources. For now, there are no rare earth mines in Quebec, and the only one in Canada was opened last summer in the Northwest Territories.
According to Marc Amyot, holder of the Canada Research Chair in Ecotoxicology and Global Change, the environmental problems experienced in this area by China, responsible in 2021 for 60% of world production, have created reluctance in several other countries. “But geopolitical pressure makes it necessary to do so. It is in our interest to open mines in Quebec and Canada for rare earths,” judge Mr. Amyot.
“Over the past seven years, hydrometallurgical processes have evolved. It’s time to demonstrate that we can reduce the environmental footprint for Montviel and lower operating costs,” said Mr. Mugerman.
Rare earths are also part of the Quebec Plan for the Valorization of Critical and Strategic Minerals 2020-2025.
“The recycling of rare earths from electromagnets will undoubtedly happen faster than that of lithium batteries, because they have been produced and used for a long time, reports for his part Michel Jébrak, professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences from UQAM. There is therefore material to be recycled in the short term. Any technology for recovering magnets and then extracting rare earths is therefore of prime importance. »