The Posco HY Clean Metal joint venture has completed construction of a secondary battery recycling plant at the Yulchon Industrial Complex in South Jeolla Province, South Korea, according to reports.
The Korea Herald reported the facility is capable of processing 12,000 tonnes of black mass and collects 2,500 tonnes of nickel, 800 tonnes of cobalt and 2,500 tonnes of lithium carbonate.
Posco Group Chairman Choi Jeong-woo said at the opening ceremony on Friday: “We will continue to invest in cathode materials, precursors, lithium and their recycling to grow Posco Group into a global leader in secondary battery materials.”
Posco Holdings plans to get a supply of black mass from PLSC to Posco HY Clean Metal, which will extract raw materials from secondary batteries. The recycling plant can also produce recycling by-products such as copper and sodium sulfate.
The Posco HY Clean Metal comprises Posco Holdings, Huayou Cobalt and GS Energy.
The Korea Daily reported that Posco’s division POSCO Future M, which also makes battery materials, recently revised up its 2030 cathode output target by almost 40%. It goes to 1 million tons a year.
The 2030 target is about a ten-fold increase from its current capacity of 105,000 (2022). There will be an estimated $8 billion in new investment by 2030, the paper said.
