Battery recycling: Ace Green expands LFP battery recycling capacity in India; Marubeni invests US$5 mn in battery recycler Altilium

US-based Ace Green Recycling, a provider of sustainable battery recycling technology solutions, has announced it has finalised a lease agreement for a site to build India's largest battery recycling facility. To be located in Mundra, Gujarat, the facility will build on Ace's existing Indian commercial operations, which have been recycling lithium-ion batteries since 2023 including lithium iron phosphate (LFP) chemistries.

As a part of this expansion, Ace announced plans to establish 10,000 tonnes/year of LFP battery recycling capacity in India by 2026, to meet the growing demand for LFP battery recycling. This strategic deployment of LithiumFirst LFP battery recycling technology in India will be phased in along with the planned deployment of the company's technology in Texas.

Ace's strategic location in Mundra, near major ports handling over 10% of India's maritime cargo, significantly streamlines the transportation of battery recycling feedstock and off-take products. The new facility will utilise Ace's LithiumFirst technology to recycle LFP batteries at room temperature in a fully electrified hydrometallurgical process producing no Scope 1 carbon emissions, and with zero liquid and solid waste. Throughout this process, the proprietary Ace technology has maintained commercial lithium recoveries from LFP batteries at levels of around 75%, producing lithium carbonate of purities exceeding 99%, which is fed back into the battery materials value chain.

In addition to recycling LFP batteries, Ace plans to use its GreenLead recovery technology to recycle lead batteries at its Mundra recycling park. This technology is a far more environmentally-friendly alternative to legacy smelting operations, with its fully electric process producing zero Scope 1 carbon emissions.

"LFP is expected to dominate the lithium battery market by 2030, and Ace is strategically scaling our LFP battery recycling capacity to meet demand and support our growing customer base," said Nishchay Chadha, CEO of Ace. "We believe that Ace is unique in its ability to sustainably recycle LFP batteries, and we plan to continue our focus on this market to build on our first-mover advantage. Our team recently visited battery recycling facilities in China, and we believe our LFP battery recycling technology to be more advanced despite a more mature and larger scale lithium-ion recycling ecosystem there."

In other news, Altilium, a UK-based clean technology group, has announced a US$5 million investment from Japanese trading and investment group Marubeni Corporation, as part of its Series B funding round, to help it fund the development of an electric vehicle (EV) battery recycling plant in the UK.

Altilium completed its Series A funding round earlier this year with a US$12 million investment from SQM Lithium Ventures, the corporate venture arm of the lithium business of Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile (SQM), one of the world's leading producers of battery-grade lithium.

The investment marks a significant milestone in Altilium's growth strategy and supports the company's mission to deliver sustainable lithium-ion battery materials, through its full battery circularity offering, encompassing zero-carbon EV battery collection, black mass recycling and chemical refining to battery metals salts, cathode precursor (pCAM) and cathode active materials (CAM). This will include the construction of the UK's largest planned EV battery recycling facility, to be located in Teesside.

Marubeni's strategic investment in Altilium will support the next stage of development for the Teesside facility, including detailed engineering studies, land acquisition, planning and permitting, and recruitment of the key leadership team. Once operational, the plant will have capacity to process battery waste from 150,000 EVs per year, producing 30,000 tonnes of low carbon CAM. This would be enough to meet 20% of the UK's CAM requirement by 2030.

Altilium is at the forefront of developing a sustainable circular economy for battery materials in the UK, reducing dependency on international supply chains and saving natural resources. The company's EcoCathode technology can recover over 95% of the battery metals from an end-of-life EV battery, reducing the cost of battery raw materials by up to 20% and cutting greenhouse gas emissions by up to 74% compared to virgin materials.

Altilium and Marubeni have been working together closely since the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding in 2023. Under the framework of the MOU, the two companies have been jointly developing a closed loop EV battery recycling business in the UK and establishing a supply chain of end-of-life lithium-ion batteries for recycling at Altilium's facilities.

Marubeni has been involved and grown its presence in the battery material industry since 1985. In recent years, Marubeni has been actively involved in the battery recycling business following its investment into the US recycling market.

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