Metals and rare earth processor Cyclic Materials will send copper from e-scrap, batteries and electric motors to Canada’s Glencore for refining.
Glencore will refine the copper at its Horne smelter and its Canadian Copper Refinery, both in Quebec.
Kunal Sinha, global head of recycling at Glencore, said in a press release that the partnership “broadens the scope of our recycling activities in this field.”
“We see Cyclic Materials filling a critical gap in the market with their focus on rare earth recovery, a much-needed solution to further drive sustainability in critical materials,” Sinha said.
Cyclic Materials started up in 2021, using a proprietary technology to recover metals from electric vehicle motors, wind turbines, MRI machines and data center e-scrap. In June, it opened its first commercial-scale facility in Ontario, Canada, and plans to develop five or six facilities in the U.S. and Canada that will feed rare earth magnets into a future hub.
The company has been scaling up over the past year and recently announced $53 million in funding targeted at expanding its global operations, along with previous funding from Microsoft.
Ahmad Ghahreman, co-founder and CEO of Cyclic Materials, said in the press release that the company is “ramping up our operations to global commercial scale, opening new facilities in the U.S. and in Europe to better serve our partners where they are.”
