Se-cure Waste Management (SWM) has been featured together with other recycling members within the industry, for our take on the current situation with the global metal prices trending downwards, the growth within the industry, profitability and future.

SWM highlighted that we are able to process up to 6,000MT per annum, electric vehicle (EV) batteries inclusive. We have reached our full capacity and are currently in search of larger space to increase our processing capacity to better serve the market.

The recycling business experiences similar cyclical trends in-line with that of the economy, and are affected by the declining prices of metal and metal salts. During this period, SWM continues to explore new markets, review internally to drive effective cost management and diversifying our service offerings. It is important for us to monitor economic cycles and adjust our strategies for revenue generation, cost management and risk mitigation so as to position ourselves for long-term success.

With the global attention shift towards sustainability and energy transition, the demand for recycled battery material is expected to increase but not without challenges – increased ESG risk and hence stricter requirements, it Is becoming increasingly challenging to obtain permits and licenses. However, with the scarcity of critical minerals, the world will seek to maximize available resources to achieve energy transition goals. We foresee recycling having a key role to play in the development of a circular economy.

The full article in Chinese Language – https://www.zaobao.com.sg/finance/singapore/story20240901-4551621?gift=1083bde0-1e78-4585-92b2-1c16649f9aca

SWM is delighted to have been awarded the ESCAP Sustainable Business Network (ESBN) Asia-Pacific Green Deal Green Badge, as a recognition to our pledge of support towards the program. With this initiative, SWM leaps one step deeper into the world of ESG, with that continuous and focused aim in creating sustainable business outcomes that drive value and fuel growth while protecting our environment and strengthening societies

In our world, sustainability is associated with SWM’s wholistic approach, taking into account almost everything, from marketing to procurement to logistics to manufacturing to customer service, partnering with like-minded businesses, going green driving long-term environmental benefits. We believe that being committed to sustainability will reduce our carbon footprint and the amount of possible toxic emissions being released into the environment, making it safe for our employees and the broader communities around us.

As the next step to demonstrate our commitment, SWM partners with STACS’s, Asia’s leading ESG data and technology company, and through its digital assessment, report ESG metrics aligned with stakeholders’ needs for consistent, comparable, and shareable data to showcase our sustainability effort to our existing and potential customers, investors and financiers.

We expect this journey to be one year long, with the ultimate aim of completing our very first ESG report for our financial year ending May 2025, and clearly mapped out action plans to further reduce our carbon footprints through improved technology and business practices.

We have been busy recent months forming strategic partnerships within and outside of our industry. These partnerships manifests in different forms, ranging from technical knowledge sharing, collaborating to visit customers jointly – all these come in valuable to SWM, helping us to grow, innovate and even possibly pivoting in a whole new direction in the broad world of lithium-ion battery recycling and repurposing.

SWM continues to aim to contribute to the industry and participates actively within the community to bring about recycling awareness through meaningful and strategic collaboration with our strategic partners.

Participation in DHL’s Asia Chapter – July 24 & 25, 2024:

One of our most recent being with DHL, partnering with them as their downstream service provider, serving the electric vehicle (EV) segment. Rapid electrification is one of the on-going trends in the market. The government’s focus on establishing a stronger network of EV charging stations and the EV ecosystem to drive the adoption of emission-free mobility is anticipated to influence the global EV battery market growth. During DHL’s Asia Chapter on July 24 & 25, 2024, we have had the opportunity to share our business model and recycling approach to the participating clientele, offering an alternative to mining metal salts for new battery manufacturing.

Hosting the MFA’s Singapore Cooperation Program (SCP) foreign delegates – July 18, 2024:

SWM have had the honor of hosting a group of foreign delegates jointly with the Singapore Environment Institute (SEI). SEI serves as the training and knowledge division of the National Environment Agency (NEA) and one of the key mandates of SEI is to organize capacity building workshops customized to specific needs. This round, the focus has been “Integrated Waste Management Strategies and Circular Economy for Sustainable Development”.

The group of 30 foreign government officials spent an afternoon at our premises to understand SWM’s effort and role in sustainability and our sustainable pathways, innovation and technology to resource repurposing and recycling. The lively exchange during the visit has been highly beneficial to SWM as we aim to serve the broader public beyond Singapore.  

CESG2024 Participation – June 19 to 21, 2024:

SWM’s round two involvement at a national level – again, we are proud to be standing alongside our National Environment Agency (NEA) team, this biennial summit welcomed thought leaders, industry captains and policy makers from the globe to connect and collaborate on possible solutions enabling a sustainable and clean environment. SWM participated in one of the three pillars – Resource Circularity, as this pillar stands as our business core – exhibiting as a platinum sponsor for the event, helming a booth, as well as taking up speaking roles during the summit, sharing our thoughts and technological quest to bring about a refreshed approach to lithium-ion recycling and repurposing.

We saw many groups of interested parties coming over to our booth, learning and understanding our process and ultimate business purpose of providing recycled battery grade metal salts as an alternative to mining to battery manufacturers. We had the honor of having many VIPs gracing our booth, including Dr. Amy Khor, Senior Minister of State for Sustainability and the Environment and Transport.

March 20, 2024

 We received a very special guest at SWM on March 20, 2024 – Dr. Amy Khor, Senior Minister of State for Sustainability and the Environment and Transport, and guests from National Environment Agency (NEA) and Ministry of Sustainability & the Environment (MSE).

We spent a delightful afternoon with her and the teams from NEA and MSE, discussing key concerns surrounding the effort for sustainability and what we are doing for the environment as a commercial organization. SWM, being in the heart of innovation and circular economy, a large portion of our commercial effort goes into sustainable innovation as we continue to work closely with our strategic partners (NEU, NTU, LiVEco and others) to address unintended environmental impacts, providing services that are good for the organization and the society in the long term. Dr. Khor, together with the teams, did a site tour to understand our lithium-ion battery recycling line and the peripheral support enabling the recycling and repurposing processes.

Being environmentally responsible is a choice – it means SWM bases our business decisions on values related to respect for the environment and humankind, leaving behind a viable world for generations to come; the feeling of making a difference. This applies to SWM’s business – this is what SWM is all about.

Dr. Amy Khor, Senior Minister of State for Sustainability & the Environment, with some of our key guests for the visit on March 20, 2024

Watch The Video Below

SWM and NEU’s portion of the interview: 37:41 – 46:54

ABSTRACT: The development of environmentally benign hydrometallurgical processes to treat spent lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) is a critical aspect of the electronic-waste circular economy. Herein, as an alternative to the highly explosive H2O2, discarded orange peel powder (OP) is valorized as a green reductant for the leaching of industrially produced LIBs scraps in citric acid (H3Cit) lixiviant. The reductive potential of the cellulose- and antioxidant- rich OP was validated using the 3,5-dinitrosalicylic acid and 2,2′-azino-bis(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic) acid assays. Leaching parameters such as OP concentration (200 mg), processing temperature (100 °C), H3Cit concentration (1.5 M), reaction duration (4 h), and slurry density (25 g/mL) were systematically optimized to achieve 80−99% leaching efficiencies of Ni, Mn, Co, and Li from the LIB “black mass”. Importantly, solid side- streams generated by the OP-enabled leaching displayed negligible cytotoxicity in three different human cell lines, suggesting that the process is environmentally safe. As a proof of concept, Co(OH)2 was selectively recovered from the green lixiviant and subsequently utilized to fabricate new batches of LiCoO2 (LCO) coin cell batteries. Galvanostatic charge−discharge test revealed that the regenerated batteries exhibited initial charge and discharge values of 120 and 103 mAh/g, respectively, which is comparable to the performance of commercial LCO batteries. The use of fruit peel waste to recover valuable metals from spent LIBs is an effective, ecofriendly, and sustainable strategy to minimize the environmental footprint of both waste types.

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SINGAPORE – The two battery recycling companies here are planning to build new plants in anticipation of a sharp increase in recycling volume as Singapore’s electric vehicle (EV) population grows.

TES Singapore, which currently processes mainly batteries from mobile devices and computers, said it will build an exclusively designed battery recycling plant for electric vehicle batteries in Singapore.

Chief strategy officer John Oh said the new plant will be able to “discharge and dismantle the batteries, and put them through mechanical and chemical recycling processes with state-of-the-art technology”.

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SINGAPORE: A recycling plant in Singapore is turning spent lithium batteries into useful metals, with the help of discarded fruit peels.

Nanyang Technological University (NTU) researchers who developed the technology of using fruit peels to tackle battery waste are working with local battery recycling and processing firm Se-cure Waste Management on the pilot project.

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JOINT NEWS RELEASE

Singapore, 28 March 2023

NTU Singapore and Se-cure Waste Management build pilot recycling plant to tackle lithium-ion battery waste with biomass waste

Following a successful proof-of-concept to recycle spent lithium-ion batteries using reagent extracted from fruit peel waste, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) is partnering Se-cure Waste Management Pte Ltd (SWM), a Singapore battery recycling and processing company, to scale up the technology in a pilot plant.

The pilot battery recycling plant has the capacity to process up to 2,000 litres of spent shredded battery mixed with fruit peel derived solvents for extraction of electrode materials such as cobalt, lithium, nickel, and manganese.

The scientists from the NTU Singapore-CEA Alliance for Research in Circular Economy (SCARCE), who developed the technology of using fruit peel waste to tackle battery waste, is also looking at using other types of biomass waste.

A key feature of the pilot plant is its modular design, which allows it to be easily configured for optimal reaction conditions to extract different types of metal.

Currently, less than 5 per cent of spent lithium-ion batteries are recycled globally and the volume of these spent batteries is projected to reach 11 million tonnes by 2030. Such technology could meet the urgent need for a recycling solution that is environmentally benign and can be easily scaled up, said the scientists from SCARCE.

Located at Neythal Road off Pioneer Road North, the pilot plant has been operational since the last quarter of 2022. Over the course of this year, the NTU and SWM team will work to optimise processes that maximise the extraction yield of valuable metals from battery waste for reuse at pre-commercial scale.

They will also evaluate the plant’s technical performance and economic viability with the goal of commercialising the technology.

Associate Professor Dalton Tay from the NTU School of Materials Science and Engineering and Cluster Director of the Energy Research Institute @ NTU (ERIAN) said: “With the proliferation of mobility devices and portable electronics, the model of extracting raw materials from the earth, using them, then discarding them is clearly unsustainable. Instead of relying on conventional mining of resources, we need to look at recovering and reusing the precious metals from our electronic waste. This integrated lithium-ion battery recycling pilot plant serves as an important engineering platform that takes us one step closer. Thanks to the support of NTUitive, NTU’s innovation and enterprise arm, we are able to work with SWM to take our technology from lab to industry, bridging the gap in the innovation continuum and paving the way towards its commercialisation.

“The use of biowastes such as fruit peel discards to close the loop on lithium-ion batteries is also a unique value proposition for potential carbon offsetting and creation of new distribution networks for green commodities. This homegrown effort enables us to make great strides towards a new and green circular economy in tackling bio- and electronic waste.”

Mr Vince Goh, Managing Director, Se-cure Waste Management, said: “Our collaboration with Assoc Prof Tay and the setting up of the pilot plant allow the seed of local innovation to grow and eventually flourish. This also provides SWM a closed-loop solution beyond processing batteries while enabling a greener and cleaner recycling process for resource sustainability. SWM and NTU will evaluate the commercial feasibility of NTU’s technology at a meaningful scale. In combination with our upstream core expertise in robotics-enabled electronic vehicle battery discharging and dismantling, as well as battery processing, SWM offers a systematic management of e-waste for the entire cradle-to-cradle.”

Professor Madhavi Srinivasan, Executive Director, NTU Sustainability Office, and SCARCE Co-Director, said: “This collaboration between NTU and SWM is part of NTU’s commitment to build a sustainable tomorrow, and fosters outcomes that address industry and societal needs outlined in NTU2025, the University’s five-year strategic plan. It is also in line with Singapore’s Zero Waste Masterplan, which charts the strategies towards a sustainable, resource-efficient, and climate-resilient nation.”

The fruit peel technology to recycle battery waste developed by SCARCE is supported by Singapore’s National Research Foundation and the National Environment Agency (NEA) under the Closing the Waste Loop Funding Initiative (Award No. USS-IF-2018-4).

Such efforts are also aligned with NEA’s Environmental Services Industry Transformation Map (ES ITM) 2025 in harnessing opportunities in environmental sustainability, and to pre-position companies like SWM for emerging opportunities in growth areas such as electronic vehicle batteries recycling.

Using biomass waste to replace strong chemicals

In 2020, an NTU team led by Associate Professor Dalton Tay and Professor Madhavi Srinivasan successfully extracted over 90 per cent (in weight) of the precious metals found in processed lithium-ion battery waste in the lab using orange peel waste and made new batteries with these recovered metals.

This method of using fruit peel waste in place of conventional strong chemicals and acids to extract precious metals from battery waste is called hydro-organic-metallurgy.

The scientists have since successfully replicated their success in the lab using other types of fruit peel waste – such as the peel of pineapples, pears, and lemons – before working with local e-waste recycling company Se-cure Waste Management (SWM) to scale up this technology. The scientists are now looking into the possibility of using other types of biomass waste.

In this new pilot plant, the process starts with SWM shredding and crushing spent lithium-ion batteries to form a crushed material, from which plastics and metals like copper, aluminium, and iron are separated. On average, the company processes 18 tonnes of spent lithium-ion batteries every day.

The final product, called black mass, contains the precious metals – cobalt, lithium, nickel, and manganese – to be extracted for reuse.

Black mass is poured into the pilot plant and dissolved in chemical concoctions derived from fruit peel wastes that has been oven-dried and ground into powder. These concoctions, which the scientists have filed a patent for, are designed to leach out precious metals over low heat.

Fruit peel is rich in sugars, naturally occurring antioxidants such as flavonoids and phenolic acids, and organic acids – all of which will enhance the dissolution and recovery of metals from the battery waste.

The precious metals are then precipitated into metal salts that can then be used to assemble new lithium-ion batteries.

Earlier, the NTU scientists demonstrated that lithium-ion batteries made from recovered metals showed similar charge capacity to commercial ones.

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