Our Commodities business segment provides waste management solutions, treatment, recovery, and recycling of industrial waste, electronic waste, and lithium-ion batteries for the electric vehicle industry.

Based in Singapore with an established track record of more than 25 years, SMCI is committed to offering recovery and recycling solutions and services to our customers to address increasing concerns about waste generation, in particular, electronic and lithium-ion battery waste.

With a continual focus on improving our process and technology to make recycling both convenient and affordable, we are focused on ensuring waste is recycled and integrated back into the supply chain, where it belongs.

One of our key e-waste management services is ‘battery recycling’ where the recycling process typically begins with the receipt of one of the following waste sources:

1. discarded electrical or electronic equipment such as spent lithium-ion batteries from portable devices;
2. battery manufacturing waste generated by manufacturer(s) that made battery for electric vehicles/energy storage systems; and
3. end-of-life battery modules generated from scraped electric vehicles.

Additional steps are required for end-of-life batteries at recycling facilities, where they undergo testing, discharging, and disassembly.

The waste batteries are then subjected to a shredding process, followed by the separation of electrode active material and current collector foil. This process yields multiple material fractions including “black mass”, which is in a powder form containing valuable materials such as nickel, cobalt, lithium, and graphite.

Currently, this “black mass” is used as a feedstock by our downstream customers for two processing purposes: (i) hydrometallurgical processing which involves treating the screened “black mass” extensively with acids to dissolve metals, and (ii) pyrometallurgical processing which involves smelting batteries in a furnace to recover cobalt, nickel, and copper in the form of alloys.

The demand for “black mass” is likely to increase as several ongoing research and development in innovative recycling processes are also using the “black mass” as feedstock.

The following chart illustrates the general recycling process of battery waste.

We will continue to explore collaborative opportunities through enhancing our competencies to better support our customers with value-adding solutions.

SMCI’s operations and facility are accredited with the following:

• certified with ISO 9001:2015 standards by Lloyd’s Register Quality Assurance (“LRQA”) on the recycling and sales of e-waste, ferrous and non-ferrous metals
• licenced by the National Environment Agency of Singapore for the establishment and operations of Lithium-ion Battery Recycling Facility
• licenced by the National Environment Agency of Singapore as a Toxic Industrial Waste Collector
• licenced by the National Environment Agency of Singapore as a Class A General Waste Collector

On 6 December 2023, SMCI entered into a non-binding Memorandum of Collaboration (the “MOC”) with Konkordia Sdn. Bhd. (“Konkordia”), a wholly-owned subsidiary of NanoVerify Sdn. Bhd. under the NanoMalaysia Group, to facilitate the opportunity of SMCI’s entry into Malaysia’s EV battery recycling industry. In this joint collaboration, SMCI shall contribute comprehensive data on existing and proposed battery recycling technologies, while Konkordia will lead in the understudy of EV battery recycling using a full recovery method, covering aspects including technology identification, process refinement, and the establishment of essential requirements. The feasibility study encompasses environmental and regulatory compliance, as well as financial modeling and the return on investment for the proposed EV battery recycling facility in Malaysia.

The Group will make the relevant update announcements to update shareholders of any material developments in due course.