American Battery Technology Company (ABTC) has started operations at its commercial-scale, lithium-ion battery recycling facility at the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center in McCarran, Nevada. The system allows ABTC to efficiently separate, recover, and purify high-value battery-grade products with less environmental impact and greater cost efficiencies than conventional methods.
Unlike conventional battery recycling methods that use high-temperature furnaces or non-strategic shredding or grinding systems, ABTC’s integrated battery recycling system utilizes a de-manufacturing and targeted chemical extraction train. This allows ABTC to recover battery materials with high yields, low cost, and a low environmental footprint.
"We are excited to have achieved this major milestone and to now be generating commercial-scale quantities of domestic recycled battery metal products," stated ABTC CEO Ryan Melsert. "By securing our move-in-ready industrial facility in early 2023, we were able to greatly accelerate our timeline to operations, and the last step of receiving approvals for the updated operational permits for our specific internally-developed processes were received over the past week."
Once operations ramp up, the facility will have the capacity to process over 20,000 metric tonnes of battery feedstock materials every year.
During the first phase of operations, the facility will process battery feedstock materials into recycled products, such as copper, aluminum, steel, a lithium intermediate, and a black mass intermediate material. These materials will be sold through an executed marketing agreement with TechMet-Mercuria, a global metals trader.
In the second phase, the facility will further refine the lithium intermediate into a battery-grade lithium hydroxide product; the black mass intermediate will be refined into battery-grade nickel, cobalt, manganese, and lithium hydroxide products.
"Our research and development, engineering, project management, and operations teams have been working with the commissioning of this facility as our highest priority, and we are proud to have accelerated our timelines to have installed our first piece of equipment within a month of gaining access to this new site, and to now have begun commercial operations less than six months later," stated Andrés Meza, chief operating officer for American Battery Technology Company.
