South Korea and Canada are embarking on strategic cooperation to establish a battery circular economy.
The Korea Institute of Industrial Technology (hereinafter KIIT) announced on the 14th that it will jointly hold the "Korea-Canada Battery Circular Economy Seminar and B2B Consultation" with the Embassy of Canada in Korea.
This event was organized at the suggestion of the Canadian side to discuss joint research between companies, pilot project promotion, and technological cooperation methods in the field of waste battery recycling and reuse between the two countries.
The seminar began with commemorative speeches by H.E. Tamara Mawhinney, Ambassador of Canada to Korea, and Lee Sang-mok, President of KIIT, followed by an introduction to Canada’s Indo-Pacific Strategy, the AICTD (Advancing International Clean Technology Demonstrations) program, and support funds for demonstration projects.
The AICTD is a clean technology commercialization promotion program that supports local Canadian SMEs with 50 million to 300 million KRW per project to conduct technology demonstration projects with companies in the Indo-Pacific region.
The seminar also included presentations on the Korean government’s "Battery Industry Promotion Support Policy," "Circular Economy Commercialization Support Policy," as well as Canada’s battery ecosystem and the National Research Council of Canada’s Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC-IRAP).
The B2B consultation was conducted with battery-related companies from both countries discussing topics of interest and exploring possibilities for mutual cooperation. At this meeting, companies are expected to seek practical technological cooperation methods in areas such as battery electrode efficiency improvement, battery lifespan extension, electric vehicle chargers, reuse of electric vehicle parts and conversion kits, lithium extraction from brine and wastewater, industrial wastewater treatment, and lithium recovery technologies.
The day before the event, an economic delegation consisting of the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development, the National Research Council, and 11 companies in the waste battery recycling and reuse sector visited Korea.
Canada is reportedly hoping to link its AICTD program with waste battery recycling to discover and promote detailed cooperation models with Korean companies.
Lee Sang-mok, President of KIIT, said, "The Korean government is building a full-cycle information management and sharing system from battery manufacturing to reuse through the 'Used Battery Policy.' We will create a concrete cooperation model that can be linked with Canada’s AICTD program to develop the two countries as strategic cooperation partners in the battery circular economy."
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