Altilium has this year been busy further enhancing its capabilities and partnerships across the value chain of the burgeoning battery recycling sector, from the collection of scrap batteries to refining black mass and producing new recycled battery metals.
Its expansion comes after investments into the company by SQM Lithium Ventures, the corporate venture arm of South American lithium producer Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile (SQM).
Post-treatment projects
One part of Altilium’s development is its building of post-treatment plants with input of battery scrap or black mass, in both the UK and Bulgaria.
Its Medet recycling hub in central-west Bulgaria is being developed as a “one-stop-shop for critical minerals in the European region, including copper, nickel, lithium and cobalt,” the firm said in May.
Altilium’s Medet hub will host a retrofit hydrometallurgical plant to recycle old electric vehicle (EV) batteries and production scrap from Eastern Europe, with capacity to process scrap from 24,000 EVs per year, the company said in May.
“We are completing final engineering work and [are] on track for commissioning next year,” a company spokesman told Fastmarkets on Thursday.
The Medet unit will also feature a copper tailings project to recycle copper from old mine waste.
“The vast site of the Medet tailings contains approximately 110 million tonnes of waste material,” Altilium said in June. “Altilium plans to recover copper and other minerals from the tailings, using its proprietary hydrometallurgical process, transforming what was once considered waste into a critical resource for Europe’s future battery industry.”
Altilium’s first mini-commercial plant is currently under construction in Plymouth, southwestern England, while its planned Teesside plant in northeastern England will be one of the largest EV battery recycling facilities in Europe once completed, the firm says.
The Teesside plant will have capacity to process scrap from more than 150,000 EVs per year, producing 30,000 tonnes per year of cathode active materials (CAM), enough to meet around 20% of the UK’s expected needs by 2030, according to Altilium.
Current operational refining capacity for black mass in Europe remains low, with many firms on the continent only operating pilot plants or demonstration post-treatment plants.
The vast majority of operational recycling capacity in Europe comes in the form of pre-treatment, shredding plants, with the newest example being the recent opening by South Korean-owned SK TES of its new Rotterdam facility to produce black mass.
Due to the lack of local processing, and several logistical and legal hurdles concerning the export of hazardous waste black mass from the EU through the Basel Convention framework, some black mass producers prefer to sell their material locally, at relatively low payables, to traders or agents based in Europe but representing foreign companies, according to market sources.
This situation allows European consumers to be able to obtain black mass at lower payables than are seen in the US market, which is not a signatory to the Basel Convention.
Fastmarkets’ latest assessments of its black mass, NCM/NCA, payable indicator, nickel, domestic, exw Europe, % payable LME Nickel cash official price, and of its black mass, NCM/NCA, payable indicator, cobalt, domestic, exw Europe, % payable Fastmarkets’ standard-grade cobalt price (low-end), were both 55-60% on October 9, unchanged week on week.
Fastmarkets’ corresponding assessments of the black mass, NCM/NCA, payable indicator, nickel, exw USA, % payable LME nickel cash official price, and the black mass, NCM/NCA, payable indicator, cobalt, domestic, exw USA, % payable Fastmarkets’ standard-grade cobalt price (low-end), were both 64-70% on Wednesday, narrowing upward from 63-70% a week earlier.
Agreements signed
In order to supercharge its end-to-end operational capability, Altilium agreed a new strategic partnership in June with recycling firm Enva for the collection and recycling of EV batteries in the UK.
The partnership will provide feed for Altilium’s Teesside refinery, a planned facility to refine lithium-ion battery scrap into battery-ready cathode anode material (CAM) for reuse in new battery production, the firm said.
Altilium in July also announced a new strategic relationship with Connected Energy, a developer of second-life battery energy storage systems.
Under the partnership, the two firms will collaborate to develop business models for the repurposing and recycling of EV batteries, bringing value to both companies, according to Altilium.
In September, Altilium received UK government funding for two of its projects with a total investment of £1.74 million ($2.27 million). This included the Teesside plant and a new partnership with an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) for the production and qualification of battery cells using CAM recovered from end-of-life batteries.
Also in September, Altilium announced that it has joined with major UK-based carmaker Jaguar-Land Rover to validate EV battery cells using recycled CAM.
“We are proud to lead this pioneering project with JLR that brings us one step closer to a circular economy for battery materials in the UK,” Dr Christian Marston, Altilium’s chief operating officer, said.
“By demonstrating that EV battery cells made from recovered materials can meet the rigorous standards of the automotive industry,” he added, “we’re not only reducing the environmental impact of battery production, but also supporting the UK’s efforts to build a more sustainable and resilient EV supply chain.”
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