$43M commercial-scale battery recycling facility to open in Georgia

Battery Resourcers, a lithium-ion battery recycling and manufacturing company based in Worcester, Massachusetts, has announced plans to build a $43 million commercial-scale recycling facility in Covington, Georgia—an eastern suburb of Atlanta.

According to a news release from the office of Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, the battery processing facility will be the largest of its kind in North America when fully operational in August.

As demand for electric vehicles (EVs) increases, the company says the U.S. needs to build a sustainable battery recycling infrastructure and that the Covington facility will help meet that demand as the site is purposefully located near several EV manufacturing hubs and lithium-ion gigafactories. The facility is one of several major industrial projects announced in Georgia in the last year according to the Atlanta Business Chronicle.

A report from Market Research Future in December of last year says the EV industry will reach $957.4 billion, adding that active support from the government, as well as advanced features such as fighting climate change, improved powertrains and lithium-ion batteries, all contribute to market growth.

“Automotive manufacturers are sitting on mountains of discarded batteries and scrap and right now they have very few options for responsible and cost-effective disposal,” Battery Resourcers CEO and Director Michael O’Kronley says. “With this convenient U.S. location and our technology, we can start to provide a sustainable solution that helps minimize the need for mining and returns valuable, battery-grade materials back into the lithium-ion supply chain.”

The Covington facility will have the capacity to process 30,000 metric tons of discarded lithium-ion batteries and scrap annually, the equivalent of 70,000 vehicle batteries per year. Its process will return battery-grade lithium, cobalt and nickel back into the battery supply chain.

The company says it also has engineered a process to turn its recyclables back into critical battery materials, specifically nickel-manganese-cobalt cathodes, which are then sold back to battery manufacturers.

“As the electric vehicle industry continues its rapid growth, battery recycling has become a vital part of the supply chain, and cutting reliance on unstable areas of the globe has never been more critical for the future,” says Pat Wilson, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Economic Development.

Battery Resourcers was founded in 2015 with a mission of returning 100 percent of battery active materials back into new batteries, and the company today makes EV-grade cathode active materials.

Its long-term plans include opening additional facilities in North America, Europe and Asia to process up to 150,000 metric tons of lithium-ion material globally per year.