Chemical recycling through electrodialysis treatment (Credit)

The Credit project will develop a novel technology concept for water treatment and chemical recovery of highly concentrated low-value sulfate waste from a battery chemical plant. The project will provide an economically feasible bipolar membrane-based technology concept for acid and base production, which reduces environmental discharge. The pilot demonstration and scale-up at the metal refinery plant will provide the first reference to Suez for marketing the concept. Moreover, the Credit project focuses on the investigations on required pre-treatment methods to separate critical impurities.

The project aims to scale-up bipolar electrodialysis (BPED) technology for recycling sodium sulfate in hydrometallurgical processes by converting it to sodium hydroxide and sulfuric acid. Tightened regulations for the release of sodium sulfate to the environment, its low value with high processing costs and the savings in chemical costs are the key issues for recycling. The amount of sodium sulfate waste in mines and mineral processes will grow considerably in the future as the need of battery chemicals for energy storage and electric vehicles is continuously increasing.

BPED enables efficient recycling of process chemicals resulting in economic and environmental benefits including higher utilization of raw materials and less waste and discharge from hydrometallurgical processes in general. The concept is well in line with the advancement of the circular economy strategy giving new prospects for boosting European innovations and new business opportunities within the raw materials sector.