Texas-based battery recycler Ecobat is going to build its first North American lithium-ion battery recycling facility.
The new facility will be sited in Casa Grande, Arizona and configured to produce 10,000 tons of recycled battery materials per year. It will be Ecobat’s third lithium-ion recycling facility globally.
With electric vehicle and battery storage markets estimated to grow exponentially as both the grid and transportation sectors attempt to decarbonize, lithium ion currently makes up about 90 percent of the chemistries used in larger-scale batteries, according to reports. Mordor Intellgence and another analysts have forecast a nearly double-digit percentage annual growth in the li-ion battery recycling market through most of this decade.
“We are thrilled to grow our global lithium-ion battery recycling footprint with a new facility in Casa Grande,” Ecobat CEO Marcus Randolph said in a statement. “This facility, like our lithium-ion battery recycling facilities in Germany and the United Kingdom, represents a significant milestone in Ecobat’s strategy to grow our lithium-ion battery recycling business to a scale similar to our world-leading lead battery recycling business.”
The Arizona facility will recycle lithium-ion batteries through diagnostics, sort, shredding and material separation to produce a concentrated black mass containing the key materials needed. It will be a mile from Ecobat Resource’s anode manufacturing facility.
The new recycling plant could start up as early as the third quarter this year.
Ecobat’s origins date back to Italy in the early 20th century and originally focused on lead smelters.
