Cobalt is a vital metal in the modern society because of its applications in lithium-ion batteries, super alloys, hard metals, and catalysts. Further, cobalt is a representative rare metal and is the 30th most abundant element in the Earth’s crust. This study reviews the current status of cobalt extraction and recycling processes, along with the trends in its production amount and use. Although cobalt occurs in a wide range of minerals, such as oxides and sulfides of copper and nickel ores, the amounts of cobalt in the minerals are too low to be extracted economically. The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) leads cobalt mining, and accounts for 68.9 % of the global cobalt reserves (142,000 tons in 2020). Cobalt is mainly extracted from copper–cobalt and nickel–cobalt concentrates and is occasionally extracted directly from the ore itself by hydro-, pyro-, and electro-metallurgical processes. These smelting methods are essential for developing new recycling processes to extract cobalt from secondary resources. Cobalt is mainly recycled from lithium-ion batteries, spent catalysts, and cobalt alloys. The recycling methods for cobalt also depend on the type of secondary cobalt resource. Major recycling methods from secondary resources are applied in pyro- and hydrometallurgical processes.

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• Recovering cobalt from cobalt oxide ore using suspension roasting and magnetic separation technique
  Xinlei Wei, Yongsheng Sun, Yanjun Li, Peng Gao
  Journal of Materials Research and Technology.2023; 27: 3005.     CrossRef

With increasing demand for resources worldwide, Korea has been negotiating with resource-holding countries to achieve conservation of energy resources. Among them, Russia is the third largest resource-producing and exporting nation in the world and has several resource materials such as nickel, platinum group metals, gold, and other reserves. As a result, there is growing interest in cooperation between Korea and Russia. The aim of this article is to summarize the current status of market flow of Russian energy resources as well as Russia’s economic cooperation with Korea. Notably, South Korea needs to focus on investing in overseas mines for a stable supply of rare metals. Nevertheless, securing rare metals is a major task by understanding the flow and policy direction of Russian material mines.

Owing to increasing demand of rare metals present in ICT products, it is necessary to promote the rare metal recycling industry from an environmental viewpoint and to prevent climate change. Despite the fact that information for toxic substances is partly indicated, a legal basis and an international standard indicating usage of rare metals is insufficient. In order to address this issue, a newly created study group of environment and climate change at the ITU (International Telecommunication Union) is doing research to develop methodologies for recycling rare metals from ICT products in an eco-friendly way. Under this group, the Republic of Korea has established two international standards related to rare metals present in ICT products. The first is ‘Release of rare metal information for ICT products (ITU-T L.1100)’ and the other is ‘Quantitative and qualitative analysis methods for rare metals (ITU-T L.1101)’. A new proposal for recommending the provision of rare metal information through a label by manufacturers and consumer/recycling businesses has been approved recently and is supposed to be published later in 2016. Moreover, these recommendations are also being extended to IEC, ISO and other standardization organizations and a strategy to reinforce the ability for domestic standardization is being established in accordance with industrial requirements. This will promote efficient recycling of rare metals from ICT products and will help improve the domestic supply of rare metals.

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• Russian Mineral Market Flow and Economic Direction for Securing Stable Resources
  Nu Si A Eom, Su Noh, Muhammad Aneeq Haq, Bin Lee, Kyoung Mook Lim, Bum Sung Kim
  Journal of Korean Powder Metallurgy Institute.2019; 26(4): 345.     CrossRef
• Trends and Implications of International Standardization for Rare Earths
  Sardar Farhat Abbas, Sang-Hyun lee, Bin Lee, Bum-Sung Kim, Taek-Soo Kim
  Journal of Korean Powder Metallurgy Institute.2018; 25(2): 165.     CrossRef

The basis of the cobalt demand analysis by use was established via the investigation and analysis of the cobalt materials flow, and the overall cobalt metal material and parts industry structure in Korea was examined to determine the cobalt material flow. The markets of the cobalt material for machinery were studied, including their interrelations, via market and study trends, and relevant plans were examined. The results of the study indicated that the advanced core technology for advanced industry and technology-intensive industry development is required to structurally innovate the parts materials and basic materials industries and to upgrade the catch-up industry structure to the new frontier structure.

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• Exploring the potential for improving material utilization efficiency to secure lithium supply for China's battery supply chain
  Xin Sun, Han Hao, Yong Geng, Zongwei Liu, Fuquan Zhao
  Fundamental Research.2024; 4(1): 167.     CrossRef
• Trade structure and risk transmission in the international automotive Li-ion batteries trade
  Xiaoqian Hu, Chao Wang, Xiangyu Zhu, Cuiyou Yao, Pezhman Ghadimi
  Resources, Conservation and Recycling.2021; 170: 105591.     CrossRef