Lithium-ion battery recycler Li-Cycle will build its third commercial lithium-ion battery recycling facility in North America.
Located in Arizona, US, the firm’s Spoke 3 facility will process 10,000 tonnes of batteries per year when complete, effectively doubling the firm’s total recycling capacity in North America.
The plant will include two 5,000 tonne processing lines engineered to directly recycle full electric vehicle packs without any dismantling.
The latest facility is located close to Li-Cycle’s existing battery supply network, as well as being at the nexus of predicted growth in the quantity of lithium-ion batteries available for recycling.
The facility brings the Canadian firm’s overall recycling capacity to 20,000 tonnes per year, and builds on its existing North American Spokes, located in the US (New York) and Canada (Ontario).
Li-Cycle’s aims to construct twenty ‘Spokes’ globally over the next five years.
Li-Cycle’s facilities convert battery manufacturing scrap and end-of-life batteries into black mass, which contains a variety of metals, including lithium, cobalt and nickel.
They will supply black mass to Li-Cycle’s future North American Hub in New York, which will process it through a hydrometallurgical circuit to produce battery-grade materials.
Materials include lithium carbonate, cobalt sulphate and nickel sulphate.
On February 16, Li-Cycle entered a definitive business combination agreement with Peridot Acquisition.
Upon the closing of the business combination, which is expected in Q2 of this year, the combined company will be named Li-Cycle Holdings Corp.