Last owner of long-time New Jersey aluminum extruder left equipment in place, according to news report.
Aluminum Shapes, a sizable aluminum extrusion plant in Pennsauken, New Jersey, remains idled after its previous owner declared bankruptcy last year. The building’s new owner says aluminum production may yet return to the site, although a future as a distribution warehouse is another potential outcome.
A Feb. 6 article by the Philadelphia Inquirer goes into considerable detail on the recent history of Aluminum Shapes, including its role in a Department of Justice investigation of a Chinese company’s prosecuted attempts to avoid tariffs.
The currently empty plant in southern New Jersey made extrusions and melted aluminum scrap from the 1950s until earlier this decade. It closed last August, says the newspaper, when the company “filed for bankruptcy protection in Camden [New Jersey], owing millions to suppliers and others,” according to the Inquirer.
The article’s author, Bob Fernandez, says scrap companies were among those jilted suppliers, citing one New Jersey scrap firm that says it is owed more than $170,000.
The bankruptcy filing occurred around the same time the most recent owner of Aluminum Shapes, Liu Zhongtian of Liaoyang, China- based China Zhongwang, was convicted on counts related to avoiding tariffs on aluminum imports. Liu is scheduled to be sentenced in the case (in abstentia) on Feb. 28.
A co-founder of the commercial real estate developer that now owns the 600,000-square-foot Aluminum Shapes building (which sits on a 25-acre parcel) is quoted as saying the aluminum production equipment remains in place within the building.
The firm, Velocity Venture Partners, says it has had previous success leasing to companies seeking distribution warehouse space, and it is selling off some of the equipment inside the Aluminum Shapes building.
However, Tony Grelli, the Velocity co-founder, says more than half the building could remain dedicated to metals production, with the furnaces and presses staying in place and being leased to a new tenant.
The full article can be viewed on this web page.
Indian recycling organization defers to virus situation in delaying event from February to early May.
The Material Recycling Association of India (MRAI) has pushed back its 9th International Indian Material Recycling Conference from its original late February 2022 dates to May 5-7 of this year.
The event, which brings together recyclers and traders from the Indian subcontinent and beyond, will remain at its originally scheduled venue, the Leela Ambience Convention Hotel in Delhi. Although MRAI does not point to lingering travel restrictions related to the omicron strain of the COVID-19 virus, it likely was a factor in the decision.
In a Feb. 5 Twitter message, MRAI has informed its followers that “registration resumes soon” for the rescheduled event. “Stay connected and don’t miss the opportunity to be among 1,800-plus expected delegates and 40-plus exhibitors representing the recycling industry,” adds the association.
More information and updates on the rescheduled event can be found on this web page.
Steelmaker will invest in two electric arc furnace sites and a DRI plant in France.
Luxembourg-based steel producer ArcelorMittal has announced it will invest 1.7 billion euros ($1.95 billion) in Fos-sur-Mer and Dunkirk, France, to install electric arc furnaces (EAFs) in both cities and an accompanying direct reduced iron (DRI) plant in Dunkirk.
The company cites a reduction in CO2 emissions as the driver of the investments. Among the techniques to prompt that is additional scrap recycling. With the French conversion from blast furnace/basic oxygen to EAF production, ArcelorMittal writes, “One kilogram of steel produced by ArcelorMittal in France will soon contain up to 25 percent recycled steel.”
Yves Koeberlé, CEO of ArcelorMittal Europe – Flat Products, says, “As a leader in steelmaking, ArcelorMittal is committed to decarbonizing its plants in Europe to serve our industrial customers–automotive, packaging, construction, transport but also solar and wind energy and future networks for hydrogen and CO2 capture. We are grateful for this support from the French state, which will enable the major transformation of our sites in Fos-sur-Mer and Dunkirk, which together account for over one-third of ArcelorMittal’s flat steel production in Europe.”
In Fos-sur-Mer, ArcelorMittal will build an EAF unit that “will complement the ladle furnace announced last March,” the company says. It adds, “Together these investments will turn Fos-sur-Mer into a reference site for the production of low carbon, circular steel, made from recycled steel.”
In Dunkirk, ArcelorMittal says it will build a 2.5-million-metric-tons-per-year DRI plant “to transform iron ore using hydrogen instead of coal." ArcelorMittal says, “This DRI will be coupled with an innovative technology electric furnace and completed by an additional electric arc furnace (EAF). Other investments are already underway to continue to increase the proportion of scrap steel used."
The new industrial facilities will be operational starting in 2027 and will gradually replace 3 out of 5 of ArcelorMittal’s blast furnaces in France by 2030, the company says. Two of the three blast furnaces to be retired are in Dunkirk, and the third is in Fos-sur-Mer.
Matthieu Jehl, CEO of ArcelorMittal France, says of French government incentives being provided, “This support makes possible the extremely high investments we need to make to decarbonize steelmaking on our Dunkirk site, Europe’s largest steel-producing site. We will therefore continue transforming our sites in France to deliver our customers with low carbon steel.”
Lithium-ion battery recycling technology provider taps into capital as it readies a large-scale system startup in the U.S.
Singapore-based Green Li-ion, a maker of hydrometallurgical systems to recycle lithium-ion batteries, has received investments from multiple sources in a recent funding round. The additional cash comes at the same time the company’s first large-scale system prepares to go live in the United States and as it has signed memoranda of understanding (MoUs) for additional systems.
Leon Farrant, CEO and co-founder of Green Li-ion, says the company’s pilot system in Singapore remains operational. “We’re fabricating our first big one right now in Texas,” he says.
Farrant and co-founder, Chief Technology Officer Dr. Reza Katal, say this first large-scale hydrometallurgical recycling plant will be installed at a LiNiCo Corp. facility near Reno, Nevada, after the large components make an escorted trip (think “wide load” signs) from Texas to the Silver State.
The MoUs signed or being finalized reveal the global nature of Green Li-ion’s business. Farrant says the signed MoUs are with Malaysia-based Pestech International and United Kingdom-based Ever Resource Ltd. Installations in India and Taiwan may also be in the offing, pending the finalization of agreements.
Success on the sales front necessitated the firm’s involvement in capital markets, Farrant says. “It’s important to begin manufacturing globally at scale,” he comments. Portions of the secured and pledged $10 million in funding also will go “considerably toward the R&D [research and development] budget,” he adds.
On the R&D front, Farrant cites “the development of our next-generation machine, which can produce not only precursor and cathode material but also pure metal sulfates” as one priority. He adds, “We’re also looking at applying this technology to solar panels.”
In addition to manufacturing and R&D, Farrant says Green Li-ion intends to bolster its intellectual property protection infrastructure. In the next two years, he envisions Green Li-Ion “tripling in size from a headcount perspective.”
The recent funding attention did not come from one single investor, but from a consortium, Farrant says. He lists London-based Energy Revolution Ventures as a lead investor. That firm also played a role in funding Canada-based lithium-ion battery recycler LiCycle, helping it prepare for its initial public offering (IPO).
Additional Green Li-ion investors include two from South Korea—venture capital firm Envisioning Partners and conglomerate IS Dongseo. Also on board are New Jersey-based environmental fund SOS Ventures and Houston-based MB Energy Partners, which Farrant says has a background in the energy and banking sectors.
The 2022 funding follows an earlier round announced in March 2021 that elicited support from Singapore-based IT lifecycle services provider TES; Nevada-based LiNiCo Corp.; San Francisco-based venture capital firm HAX-SOSV and London-based seed capital provider Entrepreneur First (EF).
Green Li-ion and its investors are addressing a recycling market that is in its infancy. A study recently published in The Journal of the Indian Institute of Science places a 1 percent recycling rate on lithium-ion batteries globally.
The authors of the study, based at the New York University Tandon School of Engineering in Brooklyn, portray a stark contrast between the recycling rate of lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles (EVs) and that for lead-acid batteries, used in internal combustion engine vehicles. Those batteries are recycled at a 99 percent rate globally.
Farrant says EV battery producers are very much among companies being approached by Green Li-ion as potential customers. “We’re working with battery manufacturers, but we try to set ourselves apart by producing cathode material faster than anyone in the market,” Farrant says of the metals (lithium, cobalt, nickel, manganese, copper, iron, aluminum and precious metals) resulting from the Green Li-ion hydrometallurgical process.
That battery-material-to-battery material outcome is closer to replicating the closed-loop model that has been established by lead-acid battery producers. “Lead-acid batteries have been around for a long time, so recycling has greatly evolved,” says Nikhil Gupta, a leader of the Tandon study. “Because the architecture of lead-acid batteries has not changed substantially over the years, recyclers know how to do it quickly and efficiently,” Gupta adds.
The co-precipitation hydrometallurgical technology used by Green Li-ion offers a similar advantage in the lithium-ion space, Farrant says. “The technology is able to recycle a myriad of lithium-ion batteries at once using one system with our GLMC-1 machine at the heart of it."
Farrant and Katal describe their lithium-ion battery methodology as faster, cleaner and up to four times more profitable than other processes of which they are aware. “This year is shaping up as one where the wider battery and recycling sectors reach that same conclusion—it has started out on a very encouraging note,” Farrant says.
Colin Sellick has been appointed president of the company.
Sellick Equipment Ltd., a forklift and attachment manufacturer based in Ontario, has appointed Colin Sellick as president of the company. The company says Sellick, who represents the third generation of the family, has worked in most areas of the company, including assembly, parts, product support, sales and implementation of the EPR system.
Along with the appointment of Sellick, the company has added Dan Rankin to the position of vice president and chief financial officer. The company says Rankin is a newcomer to the forklift landscape but he brings a keen understanding of the financial side of the business.
Sellick also has appointed Greg Buckley as director of engineering and procurement. Buckley has more than 27 years of experience working for Sellick Equipment.
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