Pilot demonstration of a novel extraction process to recover critical metals from end-of-life Li-ion batteries for immediate entry into electric vehicle battery supply chain

c079f9ff-792f-459b-90a8-1f898164d5ef

Active

Innovate UK

£1,002,083

Aug. 31, 2022

Feb. 29, 2024

Significant volumes of raw materials will be needed for an electric vehicle (EV) battery supply chain in the UK, but one major challenge is that indispensable battery metals such as cobalt and nickel are in short supply globally. With Russia being a leading source of these metals, and China dominating the processing into market ready products, the current UK supply-chain is vulnerable to geopolitical events.

Altilium Metal Ltd has invented a novel, highly efficient process that extracts nickel, cobalt, and lithium from end-of-life electric vehicle lithium-ion batteries in a quality and format that can be directly reused in battery manufacture. The technology and its industry gold standard efficiency performance have been independently validated by the University of Plymouth.

This 18-month Industrial Research programme, in partnership with Imperial College (subcontractor), will enable to Altilium to address specific challenges from the investment community, supporting our fundraising endeavours for our initial 10,000-tonne processing facility, first of four sites planned to meet UK demand until 2050\.

* Evidence of sufficient "offtake" demand. Our initial economic forecasts project the offtake of 4,750-tonnes of cathode metals by 2026 (19% of industry demand). This project enables us to show to potential clients, in volume, the quality of the cathode materials produced, helping us to secure significant early commercial interest. We will work with the Imperial College to pilot the product in a live environment (i.e. battery cells) proving quality/robustness equivalent to at-market comparatives.
* Evidence of a sufficient supply of feedstock from various sources. To meet projections by 2026, our plant will need to process 10,000-tonnes of black mass (lithium-ion waste). EV batteries will not reach end-of-life on mass until the end of the decade; therefore, this project enables us to demonstrate our processes ability to produce EV-battery cathode-ready samples to specification from a diverse range of Lithium-ion black mass chemistries/sources (e.g. consumable batteries) provided by industrial recyclers, Cawleys (UK) and KGS (Singapore).

By 2030, we intend to have two operational sites, supporting 400 new high-value jobs and generating EBITDA of £183.4m. Critically, our facilities will help attract battery manufacturers to the UK (£9bn market opportunity), supporting the UK automotive industry (170,000 existing jobs).

Furthermore, an EV battery recycling industry in the UK would reduce the cost of EV battery production and decrease carbon emissions compared to the use of virgin cathode materials.