
Geneva/Reno – TechMet-Mercuria relies on American Battery Technology Company’s novel process for recovering metal products from lithium-ion batteries. The Geneva-based company is supporting this process with up to $20 million at a new facility in the U.S. state of Nevada.
Geneva-based TechMet-Mercuria and Reno, Nevada-based American Battery Technology Company(ABTC) have agreed to a wide-ranging collaboration, according to a media release. It includes the manufacture, sale and global marketing of metal products that ABTC recovers from lithium-ion batteries, as well as a non-dilutive investment by TechMet-Mercuria of up to $20 million through the upfront purchase of these recycled metal products. TechMet-Mercuria is a merger of TechMet, which focuses on technological metals for e-mobility, and Mercuria, one of the world’s largest independent energy and commodity trading companies.
ABTC is currently commissioning a commercial lithium-ion battery recycling facility at the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Centre, using ABTC-developed processes to systematically break down batteries into their component parts. According to the information, these processes enable the efficient separation of engineered structural and carrier materials to be sold as by-products. Subsequently, a high-quality filter cake is produced from black mass, from which most of the potential impurities have been removed.
ABTC plans to use additional recycling processes to further process this intermediate black mass internally, rather than distributing it as an intermediate product. It will then manufacture its own battery cathode-grade nickel, cobalt, manganese and lithium hydroxide products and sell them to appropriate refiners in the United States.
TechMet-Mercuria’s co-managing director Quentin Lamarche sees “immense global demand for recycled high-purity black mass from lithium-ion batteries, particularly for those materials produced in systems where most other contaminating battery components have been previously removed.” ce/mm