GM makes investment in Lithion Recycling

Global automaker General Motors (GM) and Montreal-based Lithion Recycling Inc. have announced that GM Ventures, the automaker’s investment arm, has made an investment in Lithion’s Series A financing round. The investment will support “a new GM-Lithion strategic partnership agreement to pursue a circular battery ecosystem using Lithion’s advanced battery recycling technology,” say the two companies.

The two companies say their joint efforts will focus on: “validation of Lithion’s recovered battery materials for use in the production of new batteries, and potential to acquire battery materials; and joint investment in research and development for both recycling processes and recyclability of future battery design.”

“Working with GM marks a key step in Lithion’s commercial development and pioneers a needed breakthrough in the electrification of transportation by enabling a cost-effective and sustainable circularity in the EV battery industry,” says Benoit Couture, president and CEO of Lithion. “This partnership underscores our commitment to enable the transition to a low-carbon economy amidst the fight against climate change.”

Lithion claims a materials recovery rate of more than 95 percent via its lithium-ion battery recycling process, and also points to its use of Québec’s non-fossil fuel hydro power as meaning its “technology and operations will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by over 75 percent and water usage by over 90 percent compared to mining battery materials, as demonstrated by a third-party life cycle analysis.”

“GM is aggressively scaling battery cell and electric vehicle (EV) production in North America to reach our target of more than 1 million units of annual capacity by 2025, and we plan to eliminate tailpipe emissions from all our new light-duty vehicles by 2035 – so we are building a supply chain and recycling strategy that can grow with us,” says Jeff Morrison, a GM vice president. “In Lithion’s technology, we see the opportunity to recover and reuse raw material in our Ultium battery packs, making the EVs we produce even more sustainable and helping drive down costs.”

In August, Ultium Cells, GM’s joint venture with LG Energy Solution, opened its first U.S. battery cell plant, with two additional plants under construction. A fourth planned battery cell plant will further increase GM’s projected total U.S. battery capacity.

GM says it now has binding agreements securing all its battery raw material to reach annual planned capacity in 2025, including lithium, nickel, cobalt and full cathode active material supply, says the automaker, as it works to increasingly localize its battery materials supply chain to North America.

In 2023, Lithion says it will launch its first commercial recycling operations, drawing on data from a demonstration plant commissioned in January 2020. The new facility, with a capacity to handle 7,500 metric tons per year of lithium-ion batteries, will be followed in 2025 by the launch of its first hydrometallurgical plant, says the company.