American Battery Metals to start operations Q4 2020

American Battery Metals Corp., Incline Village, Nevada, has announced that its new battery recycling and resource production company is on track with its lithium-ion battery recycling plant to commence commercial operations in the fourth quarter of 2020. 

The company had received $25,000 in grant funding in 2019 as part of BASF’s Circularity Challenge, which is a six-month accelerator program for startups.

According to a news release from American Battery Metals, the new Nevada facility will be designed to handle up to 20,000 metric tons of scrap materials and end-of-life batteries. With a global forecast of 11 million metric tons of end-of-life lithium-ion batteries expected by 2030, the company says it’s positioned to address increasing needs for lithium-ion battery recycling. 

The company states that it’s becoming more important and could be mandated that domestic U.S.-based original equipment manufacturers use domestically sourced materials for manufacturing electric vehicle batteries. The company adds that this is especially important for materials like cobalt, which is currently predominantly mined in the Congo, where ethical standards are not up to global standards and nor are they environmentally sustainable. 

American Battery Metals is partnering with local, county, state and federal agencies in Nevada and the federal government to start the new facility. The company reports that the current economic crisis has affected global supply chains but that it is prepared and on track for commercial operations to start later this year. It adds that mechanical and chemical processing loops will be running by the second quarter of 2021.