Lithium-ion battery recycler American Battery Technology Company (ABTC) has received a $2 million contract to address battery demand and support the development of a US domestic battery supply chain.
The cash will be used to demonstrate ABTC’s lithium-ion battery recycling system’s ability to deliver battery materials for the production of battery cathode-grade metal products.
The contract includes the synthesis of cathode material from recycled battery metals by cathode producer and lithium-ion battery recycler BASF.
BASF will then send refined materials to cell technology developer C4V, which will manufacturer cells that will be tested against identical cells made from virgin-sourced metals.
The cells made using recycled materials will be tested by auto manufacturers.
The contract award, which includes a 75% cost-share, funds a 30-month project that began in October.
The contract comes from the United States Advanced Battery Consortium (USABC), in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).
The $2 million will fund a three-tiered partnership between ABTC, BASF and C4V to secure a domestic circular supply chain of battery metals, validate that batteries made from recycled metals are equal to those made with virgin-sourced metals, and demonstrate that battery-grade metals can be manufactured from recycled materials at lower cost with lower environmental impact.
ABTC CEO Ryan Melsert, said: “While the domestic manufacturing capacities of electric vehicles and of lithium-ion battery cells have grown rapidly in the US in recent years, unfortunately the domestic production capacities of the battery metals that supply these operations have not kept pace.
“The establishment of a commercial scale domestic US battery recycling industry can address these challenges and produce each of the battery metals required to supply new manufacturing operations.”
