EV battery recycling firm Li-Cycle Holdings to process Ultium Cells scrap in Ohio

Li-Cycle Holdings Corp. of Toronto has struck a deal to set up a new battery recycling operation next door to Ultium Cells’ sprawling Warren, Ohio battery cell manufacturing plant that will soon be building cells for the next generation of General Motors electric vehicles.

The lithium-ion battery recycling firm said the plant will be capable of processing 15,000 tonnes of battery manufacturing scrap per year coming from Ultium’s 2.8 million square-foot (260,000 square-metre) plant.

“Building this Spoke facility alongside Ultium Cells’ plant is expected to substantially optimize costs and logistics as we transform manufacturing scrap from the plant into highly valuable material, using our unique, sustainable and fit-for-purpose approach,” Ajay Kochhar, CEO and co-founder of Li-Cycle, said in a release.

Ultium, a joint venture between GM and LG Energy Solution, signed a multi-year recycling deal with Li-Cycle last May. The new co-location agreement will help cut down on the cost to move scrap material produced at the cell plant.

No financial details were not disclosed, but Ultium will construct a new building to house the on-site recycling operation as part of the deal.

While Li-Cycle is preparing to process a large number of EV batteries as more EVs reach retirement, its recycling process also works for manufacturing scrap from cell plants. This ready supply of battery material will help the company scale up as it prepares for larger waves of end-of-life EVs in the late 2020s and beyond.

For every ton of batteries manufactured, between 50 and 100 kilograms of material ends up as waste, Tim Johnston, co-founder and chair of Li-Cycle Holdings Corp. told Automotive News Canada.

‘BOLD STEP’

Today, mining new material is required to meeting surging battery demand, but eventually Li-Cycle and its competitors expect the majority of battery materials to come from recycling spent batteries. By 2030, Johnston said, the company expects new EV batteries will contain between 10 and 20 per cent recycled materials.

“The ultimate end point is that we should be able to get to about 90 per cent supply of those raw materials from a recycled source.”

Ultium’s Ohio Plant Director Kevin Kerr said the co-location deal is a “bold step” forward in the cell maker’s path toward sustainability.

“Our collaboration with Li-Cycle is an instrumental step in improving the sustainability of our components and manufacturing processes,” he said in a release.

The new Ohio facility will carry out the first step in Li-Cycle’s two-stage recycling process, using the company’s submerged shredding technology to break down batteries into three parts: plastics, shredded metals and black mass — a loam-like substance rich in key battery materials graphite, nickel, lithium, cobalt and manganese.

NORWAY EXPANSION

Li-Cycle’s second stage relies on hydrometallurgical process to isolate the key battery materials and prepare them for re-use in new batteries. Its “hub” in Rochester, Ny., which will receive black mass from the network of shredding plants, is scheduled to open in 2023.

In addition to its Ohio plans, the recycler has been aggressively expanding its shredding operations, known as “spokes,” in recent months. On Wednesday, it announced plans to expand into Europe, setting up a joint venture with two Norwegian battery companies. Currently, it has two operating facilities with capacity to process a total of 10,000 tonnes of battery material and a pipeline of four other plants that will add 45,000 tonnes of capacity by next year.

The Ohio spoke is scheduled to come online early next year, not long after construction on Ultium’s cell manufacturing plant wraps up this summer.