(TCR) THE FUTURE IS IN BLACK MASS

Metals and fossil fuels behemoth Glencore is pumping $200 million into battery recycler Li-Cycle as part of a larger, symbiotic supply deal inked by the two firms.

Under the new agreement, the Swiss materials giant will ship burnt-out batteries and scraps to Li-Cycle, which will recover the high-demand metals so they can be reused in electric vehicle batteries and other applications.

Li-Cycle uses a spoke-and-hub approach for recovering the materials. At their spoke facilities, they shred spent batteries and use a water-based system to begin to break down the batteries. Known as hydrometallurgical processing, the technique uses less energy than pyrometallurgical processing, the other major method that basically melts batteries down. While the hydrometallurgical approach can recover more minerals, too, one downside is that it produces more wastewater that must be treated.

From its spoke facilities, Li-Cycle ships a substance known as black mass to its hub facilities for further processing. There, it separates the black mass into a variety of materials, including those that can be used to make new lithium-ion batteries.

Glencore will be providing Li-Cycle with black mass for processing as well as manufacturing scrap. Securing a supply of scrap could be advantageous for the startup since it is easier to recycle than whole batteries.

After news of the convertible financing deal broke, Li-Cycle’s stock shot up nearly 9% to a high of $7.89 per share during regular trading hours. The six-year-old recycling firm debuted on the New York Stock Exchange last August via a $1.55 billion SPAC merger. On top of the $200 million from Glencore, the battery recycler recently secured an additional $50 million from LG and $100 million from the infamous fossil-fuel booster Koch Industries.

Glencore said in an investor update late last year that it intends to boost its recycling operations around the world, a shift for the company that is known more for mining virgin ore than diverting waste from landfills. The mining giant says the move should help bring down the carbon intensity of its materials. Glencore has said that it is targeting net-zero emissions by 2050. TechCrunch - link - Tim De Chant - link - Harri Weber - link - more like this (lithium) - link - more like this (batteries) - link

(INS) LI-CYCLE

A Li-Cycle employee oversees lithium-ion batteries on a conveyor belt at the company’s plant near Rochester, New York. Photo courtesy of Li-Cycle

The battery economy is booming, and with it a recycling industry is bracing itself for a wave of battery waste.

Battery Resourcers of Worcester, Massachusetts, said last week that it is planning to build a plant in Georgia that will be capable of recycling 30,000 metric tons of lithium-ion batteries per year. It will be the largest battery recycling plant in North America when it opens later this year.

But its reign will be brief because Li-Cycle, based in the Toronto area, is building an even larger battery recycling plant near Rochester, New York, that is scheduled to open in 2023. The company said last month that it is modifying its plans in a way that increases the plant’s size, a response to forecasts of high demand for recycling.

To help understand what’s happening, I reached out to Jeff Spangenberger, a researcher at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois and also director of the ReCell Center, a collaboration between the government and industry to improve battery recycling technologies.

“If the process is good enough, there’s no reason why you can’t make battery materials from the battery materials,” he said.

For him, the development of a battery recycling industry is one of the most important and exciting parts of the transition to clean energy.

It’s important because the growth of electric vehicles and battery storage systems will eventually lead to millions of tons of batteries that are unusable unless they are recycled. And it’s exciting because researchers and entrepreneurs are coming up with cost-effective ways to reuse most of that waste.

The recycling industry is changing and growing to prepare for a projected five-fold increase in the amount of lithium-ion batteries available for recycling globally by 2030, according to figures from Li-Cycle and Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.

Lithium-ion batteries are used to power electric vehicles, battery storage and consumer electronics. The batteries contain rare and expensive metals like cobalt and nickel.

As companies manufacture more batteries, governments and environmental advocates have growing concerns about environmental damage from across the battery lifecycle, including the mining of metals to manufacture batteries, and the pollution that happens when old batteries end up in landfills. Inside Climate News - link - Dan Gearino - link - more like this (USA) - link - more like this - link - more like this (Massachusetts) - link