This Company Wants to be at the Forefront of Lithium Battery Recycling

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The following post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga.

By 2030, it’s estimated that there will be 230 million electric vehicles driving on roads around the globe. The widespread adoption of electric vehicles holds promise to help curb CO2 emissions and is great news for the environment. Nevertheless, a new set of problems is arising.

Almost all types of electric vehicles (EVs) rely on lithium batteries as a power source. It’s the reason Tesla Inc. TSLA and General Motors Co. GM have invested in lithium battery production as a means to control their company’s supply chains. 

Lithium batteries are an advanced battery technology that uses lithium, but also nickel, cobalt, and manganese. They’re used in a wide variety of electronic devices and technologies, including electric vehicles, mobile phones, tablets, laptops and medical devices. Lithium batteries are also used for solar power storage and as emergency power backup.

The capacity of lithium batteries has been increasing steadily for years and shows no signs of slowing down. Production is projected to grow by more than 10 fold between 2020 and 2030.

Growing rates of adoption for consumer electronics and electric vehicles means the world will continue to need more and more lithium batteries and the materials that power them. It also means that lithium battery waste will continue to pile up. This wasn’t a major concern when electric vehicles were still rare. However, experts are now reconciling with the fact that a problem is looming.

“Taking an average lithium ion battery scrap rate of 10% means we could have as much as 80 gigawatt hours (GWh) of scrap lithium ion batteries to recycle by 2025,” according to Simon Moores, Managing Director of Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. “This is the same size as the world’s entire lithium ion battery market in 2017.”

Millions of dead lithium batteries pose both a logistical nightmare as well as environmental risks. Current means of disposal involve placing a majority of lithium batteries in landfills or high-heat smelters. When this happens problematic toxins and heavy metals are released, poisoning the soil and local ecosystems.

Fortunately, lithium batteries can be recycled, but most aren’t. That’s in part because the industry has yet to introduce a clear path for economical, large-scale recycling. There’s also been a lack of efficient infrastructure to recycle lithium batteries — until now. 

One company, American Manganese Inc. AMYZF, is at the forefront of making lithium battery recycling the norm. It has developed a breakthrough, patented recycling process that claims to recover used lithium battery metals from electric vehicles.

Its solution is RecycLiCo™, and it entails minimal processing steps with over 99% extraction of materials like lithium, cobalt, nickel and manganese. The best part? The process is also environmentally friendly.

American Manganese’s goals also go a step further. The company intends to effectively close the lithium battery lifecycle loop by licensing or joint venturing its RecycLiCo™ process alongside gigafactories and EV manufacturers. Its patented recycling process aims to produce materials as high-quality cathode precursors and lithium compounds, which could then be directly integrated into the remanufacturing of battery cathodes using minimal processing steps.

Learn more about American Manganese’s patented RecycLiCo™ process as well as company financials here.

The preceding post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga. Although the piece is not and should not be construed as editorial content, the sponsored content team works to ensure that any and all information contained within is true and accurate to the best of their knowledge and research. This content is for informational purposes only and not intended to be investing advice.