Tees Valley Lithium (TVL) has entered into an MOU with Altilium Metals, a battery recycler that will supply TVL with lithium sulphate feedstock. They will also investigate supply of lithium hydroxide for Altilium Metals’ planned cathode active materials (CAM) production facility in Teesside, England.
It will be combined there with critical metals recovered from end-of-life batteries and gigafactory scrap to produce CAM.
TVL’s processing hub at the Wilton International Chemicals Park is close to Altilium Metals’ planned battery recycling facility. It will have capacity to process scrap from over 150,000 electric vehicles per year. TVL’s owner, Alkemy Capital Investments, said the deal makes the plant one of the largest in Europe and the only one of its kind in the UK.
It is due to produce 96,000 tonnes of premium lithium hydroxide annually. It expects to produce enough of it for the entire forecast automotive demand in the UK by 2030.
Alkemy said the refinery was recently highlighted by the UK’s Critical Minerals Association as a project of strategic importance in the UK critical minerals midstream processing and refining.
Altilium Metals will reuse waste sulphuric acid from TVL’s refinery to extract lithium and other critical metals from battery waste at its hydrometallurgical recycling facility. It expects to produce 30,000 tonnes of CAM a year.