one operating mine, which is located at Bou Azzer in Morocco (Bouabdellah et al., 2016; Ikenne et al., 2021). Globally, battery manufacturing was the largest consumer of cobalt in 2020, at 57 percent. The cobalt is used in the production of nickel-manganese-cobalt battery cathodes, which have a cobalt content of between 10–20 per cent.