Materials Eco-Refining to Expand Metal Recycling Business

Mitsubishi Materials’ wholly owned subsidiary, Materials Eco-Refining expands recycling of indium tin oxide, which is used for transparent electrode of liquid crystal panel. The firm already expanded the output capacity of electrolytic tin by 25% at Hyogo plant 2 years ago and established annual 120 tonnes of indium oxide production in Fukushima in 2007. The firm tries to expand recycling business to recover precious metals, copper, lead and zinc.

The Japanese sole tin refiner makes electrolytic tin with 99.998% or more purity. The Hyogo plant with 900 tonnes of annual output capacity operates at full capacity. The high grade tin is used by Mitsubishi Materials to make ITO and high grade solder.

Materials Eco-Refining makes indium from used ITO target materials at Akita and Fukushima. The Akita plant operates the indium oxide plant with annual 60 tonnes of capacity at full capacity while the recycling ingot plant with 40 tonnes of capacity operates at 70% level. The Fukushima plant operates the indium oxide plant at 50% of the capacity.

The firm tries to expand the precious metals recycling, especially for platinum group metals from target material, dental alloy and catalyst at Fukushima plant. The firm also supplies copper from copper slag and copper scrap for Mitsubishi Materials’ smelter as copper source.