Printed circuit boards (PCB’s) can contain up to 30% by weight of metals such as copper, zinc, tin, lead, iron, nickel and precious metals such as gold, silver, platinum and palladium (Fortune Business Insights 2024). E-waste can contain between 0.2 to 0.5 grams of gold per kilogram (g/kg), which translates to 200 to 500 grams per ton. The E-waste recycling market size was valued at USD 14.2 billion in 2022 (Fortune Business Insights 2024). The industry is projected to grow from USD 16.2 billion in 2023 to USD 61.1 billion by 2032, exhibiting a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15.9% during the forecast period (2023 - 2032). Globally, approximately 62 million tonnes of E-waste were generated in 2022 (Balde et al, 2024). This volume is up from 34 million tonnes in 2010 and is projected to grow to 82 million tonnes by 2030. Collection and recycling of e-Waste is highly variable around the world but is a significant issue for Europe and the USA. E-waste recycling has become increasingly important in recent years due to a combination of environmental and economic factors. One of the driving factors is the rapidly increasing amount of electronic waste generated worldwide. With the proliferation of computer servers, electronic devices, including smartphones, laptops, tablets, and other electronic gadgets, the volume of electronic waste is expected to continue to rise in the coming years.

Lithium batteries (LiB) are comprised of valuable metals such as lithium, copper, manganese, cobalt, and nickel. Once a battery is retired, the batteries can be collected, fully discharged, then shredded and base metals separated to prepare them for recycling. This metallic mixture called black mass contains all the valuable metals that make up battery anodes and cathodes. The typical black colour is due to the high concentrations of graphite contained in the anodes of batteries. Battery metals account for up to 30% of the battery by weight which is far greater than those of natural resources, for example a NMC 111 battery contains 11% lithium, 30% nickel, 31% cobalt and 28% manganese. FJH has been shown in the laboratory (Chen et al. 2023 ) to improve the recovery of battery metals from black mass when applied prior to conventional acid leaching. MTM is planning to evaluate how this material responds to treatment in the Company’s prototype FJH unit. The black mass recycling market is expected to increase at a compound annual growth rate of 19.5% between 2023 and 2030, from an estimated USD 8.1 billion in 2022 to USD 33.6 billion by 2030 (xResearch, 2024 ). This growth is primarily being driven by the expanding use of LiB in electric vehicles and portable electronics. Rising awareness of environmental issues such as pollution, resource depletion and climate change is driving the demand for more sustainable and efficient recycling methods for black mass.

“Red mud” is an industrial waste generated during the processing of bauxite into alumina using the Bayer process. Testing of red mud using FJH has been carried out to assess the viability of recovering residual aluminium and other critical metals such as titanium, REE, scandium and gallium. Large resources of bauxite residue already exist globally. Annually about 140 Mt of bauxite residue is produced and the global inventory is expected to reach 10Bt by 2050 (IAI 2022 ). Residue storage ponds present a similar environmental challenge to CFA and significant research is underway to both recover critical metals and reduce the amount of material in long-term storage.

Recent testing has shown that the FJH technology can increase the recovery of rare earth elements (REE) and other critical metals from coal fly ash (CFA) by improving the susceptibility of the CFA to acid leaching. It is estimated that coal fired power generation produces approximately 900 Mt per annum of CFA (Markets and Markets 2024 ). The average REE global grade of CFA is about 445 ppm total rare earth element oxide (TREO) (Sreenivas et. al 2021 ), representing approximately 0.5 Bt of TREO. The amount of rare earth oxides produced globally in 2023 was 350,000 t of TREO (reference) and global demand is expected to grow to 466,000t TREO by 2035 driven by the demand for electric vehicles, wind turbines etc. Existing CFA deposits in landfill are therefore a very strategic source of REE and other metals provided an economic processing technology can be developed. Furthermore, CFA production is also a matter of serious environmental concern as it is typically placed in landfill and acidic leach liquors containing heavy metals can leach out into the subsoil or contaminate groundwater.