UK – Mining and refining company, Altilium Metals Ltd of Tiptree, UK has signed a UK battery collection and recycling partnership with recycling company Enva Ltd, based in Glasgow Scotland. This deal will support the decarbonisation of the UK’s transportation industry. Enva has claimed that over the next decade, 100 million EV (passenger and commercial) batteries are expected to reach the end of life globally. The problem is what will you do with those batteries? Under the MoU (Memorandum of Understanding), Enva will contribute its national battery collection network with Altilium’s recycling expertise, recovering precious metals and other critical materials such as lithium, which will be used in the production of new batteries. Altilium uses its EcoCathode process which is a hydrometallurgical recycling processes that can recover up to 95% of the battery metals, in a reusable state. These metals will then be sold to a battery manufacturer. This circular economy approach has attracted significant attention from within the battery industry as well as governments from around the world.

Altilium is currently engaged in manufacturing a “mega-scale” recycling plant for end-of-life lithium-ion batteries from EVs in Teesside, a built-up area in the northeast of England incorporating settlements such as Middlesbrough and Stockton-on-Tees. This facility should come online in 2025.  By the end of the decade, Altilium Metals aims to recycle batteries from 150,000 EVs per year producing 30,000 MT (metric tons) of Cathode Active Materials (CAM) enough to meet 20% of the expected UK demand by 2030.