Recycling start-up Redwood Materials has announced plans to produce anode copper foil and cathode active materials in the US for its battery cell-manufacturing partners.
The firm, which was co-founded by Tesla co-founder and CTO Jeffery Struabel, plan to offer large-scale sources of domestic materials produced from recycled batteries and augmented with “sustainably mined material”.
Redwood will announce a site early for its first North American battery materials manufacturing facility next year.
The company aims to produce 100GWh a year of cathode active materials and anode foil by 2025; by 2030, it plans to increase production output to 500GWh a year.
Redwood says its products will re-use all of the lithium, copper, nickel and cobalt that it already recovers from old batteries.
A company statement read; “These materials will be built from more and more recycled battery content every year but in the immediate future, we need to ramp EV production faster than the number of existing EVs will reach end of life and therefore, be available for recycling.
“Quickly ramping up a domestic battery materials supply chain and using the highest possible percent of local, recycled raw materials is the best way we can meet the US’s 2030 electrification goals.
“In order to achieve a sustainable energy and transportation future, we need to start now and rapidly expand a manufacturing base.
“Sustainable and affordable battery materials are the missing piece of the puzzle to create the fully closed-loop supply chain needed to build the world’s electric vehicles and clean energy products.”
$700 million funding
In July 28, Redwood announced a “more than $700 million” external investment from a “carefully selected group of strategic investors”.
The round was led by funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates and included: Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Baillie Gifford, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, and Fidelity.
In addition, all Series B investors, Capricorn’s Technology Impact Fund, Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund, returned for this round and Valor Equity Partners, Emerson Collective, and Franklin Templeton.
Straubel, CEO of Redwood Materials, said at the time: “With this capital, Redwood will be able to accelerate our mission to make battery materials sustainable and affordable, accomplishing the change we need in the world with a circular economy.”