[Corporate Strategy] Sumitomo Metal Mining Holds Completion Ceremony for Battery Recycling Plant — Commercial-Scale First in Japan (Company Survey), About 10,000 Tonnes a Year of Feedstock Capacity

On 14 September 2026, Sumitomo Metal Mining announced that it had held a completion ceremony on 11 September, at the Toyo Smelter & Refinery, for the battery recycling plant it had been building at the Toyo Smelter & Refinery (Saijo, Ehime Prefecture) and the Niihama Nickel Refinery (Niihama, Ehime Prefecture). It said that about 80 people attended, including officials from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, the Ministry of the Environment and Ehime Prefecture, and business partners. The company describes the plant as the first of its kind at commercial scale in Japan (company survey). It recovers nickel, cobalt and lithium, as well as copper, from used automotive batteries and other sources, and has a feedstock processing capacity of about 10,000 tonnes a year on a battery-cell basis. The feedstock is black mass, a concentrate obtained by neutralising, crushing and sorting used batteries, which is processed by combining the pyrometallurgical process at the Toyo Smelter & Refinery, the hydrometallurgical process at the Niihama Nickel Refinery and Kanto Denka Kogyo's high-purity lithium recycling process. According to the company, the plant is currently in trial operation. The nickel and cobalt recovered there are sent as a high-purity mixed solution to the Isoura Plant (Niihama) and reused as feedstock for battery materials (cathode materials) that contain recycled metals. The company aims to realise horizontal "battery-to-battery" recycling. The plant is supported by NEDO's Green Innovation Fund Project.