Major Chinese cobalt refiner and lithium cathode precursor manufacturer Green Eco-Manufacture (GEM) is building a production complex to recycle decommissioned power and energy storage batteries and used battery materials in Yibin in southwest China's Sichuan province.
The complex, with a total investment of 1.71bn yuan ($239mn), will have a 100,000 t/yr capacity for decommissioned power batteries and scrap, 50,000 t/yr for used lithium iron phosphate (LFP) material and 3GWh/yr for used energy storage battery packs. The project will be developed by GEM subsidiary Wuhan Power Battery Renewable Technology in partnership with domestic chemical company Yibin Tianyuan Group.
The first phase of the project, with 50,000 t/yr capacity for decommissioned power batteries and scrap, 20,000 t/yr for used LFP material and 1GWh/yr for used energy storage battery packs, will be completed and put into production within a year. The whole project aims to be competed no more than three years from the start of the first phase of construction. More details, including the start date, were undisclosed.
GEM has been accelerating its development of power battery recycling business in the past few years. It signed an agreement in August 2021 with major Chinese lithium-ion battery manufacturer EVE Energy for supplies of 10,000 t/yr for recycled nickel-containing products, including nickel sulphate, ternary precursors and ternary cathode active materials. EVE Energy will receive these products from GEM for 10 years from 2024.
It also signed an agreement in August 2021 with Chinese power and energy storage manufacturer Farasis Energy (Ganzhou) to develop a recycling project for used power batteries and scrap. GEM will receive used power batteries and scrap from Farasis' global supply chain and process them into recycled battery-grade nickel, cobalt and manganese sulphates and ternary precursors and ternary cathode active materials. These products will then return as feedstock supplies to Farasis for its battery production. More details including the capacity and supply volumes were undisclosed.
GEM in May this year told its investors that it aims to increase its power battery recycling output to above 300,000t by 2026 in line with increased used power batteries in the market, with a target to disassemble and recycle 35,000t of decommissioned power batteries in 2023, doubling that of the previous year. It is also on target to have 150,000 t/yr metal equivalent of nickel output capacity in Indonesia by 2026, as well as 50,000 t/yr of recycled nickel production by the same year.
Argus forecasts that lithium-ion battery recycling from electric vehicle (EV) and gigafactory scrap will add up to over 1mn t of cathode material to the global supply mix by 2033.
GEM's ternary precursor shipments, including lithium nickel-cobalt-manganese and lithium nickel-cobalt-aluminium precursors increased by 67pc from a year earlier to 152,300t in 2022, driven by rapid demand growth from the lithium battery and EV sectors.
