Ascend Elements Opens One of the Largest North America’s Electric Vehicle Battery Recycling Plant in Georgia
In order to meet the
anticipated demand for recycling a significant number of electric vehicle
batteries as the federal government pushes for increased EV production in the
United States, Ascend Elements will open its first commercial-scale lithium-ion
battery recycling operation in March 2023. This facility will be located in
Covington, Georgia. According to Ascend Elements, the facility is the biggest
of its kind in North America and is worth about USD 50 million. The factory
started operating in August of last year and can currently handle 30,000 metric
tonnes of spent lithium-ion batteries annually, which is equivalent to around
70,000 batteries for electric vehicles annually.
Ascend Elements CEO Mike
O’Kronley, said, “As a business, we need to keep on building our closed-loop
battery materials supply chain to make electric vehicle batteries cleaner and
more sustainable.”
The company recovers up to
98% of the essential battery metals required in the creation of gigafactory
trash and batteries for electric vehicles. By using its unique Hydro-to-Cathode
process to recycle spent lithium-ion batteries and waste, Ascend Elements can
minimize the carbon footprint of the materials required to make the cathodes
for new electric vehicle batteries by up to 90%.
According to the company, it
now employs about 100 people and anticipates increasing that number to 185 by
2024.
This is an inventive
illustration of a nationwide drive to cost-effectively recycle and reuse EV
batteries as a growing number of people transition to electric vehicles. In
previous decades, businesses didn't make significant investments in lithium-ion
recycling, but in recent years, expenditure has surged to keep up with the
explosive growth in demand for battery materials. It's not necessary to create
new battery materials at a high cost or at the expense of the environment.
Although it is highly challenging to build new mines in the US, the federal
government is lavishing funds on new battery recycling plants. Another
prerequisite of the new EV tax benefits is an increase in the proportion of
batteries and battery component purchases done locally.