American Manganese Inc., with its advanced and patented lithium-ion battery cathode recycling process (RecycLiCo™), announces that it has awarded a $2.7 million contract to Kemetco Research Inc., a leading metallurgical laboratory. The contract will include the development of a 500 kg/day demonstration recycling plant and the design of a 5 tonne/day commercial recycling plant, using the RecycLiCo™ process.
“Lithium-ion battery recycling is gaining recognition and I’m proud of Kemetco and our team for having the foresight to recognize this opportunity in 2016 and secure leading patents in this field. Research and development projects take time to perfect and minimize risk, but our head-start puts us in an envious position as we advance towards a commercial offering,” said Larry Reaugh, President and CEO of American Manganese. “After market research and consultation with Kemetco, we have decided to increase our initially planned commercial plant capacity from 3 tonnes/day to 5 tonnes/day.”
American Manganese has worked with Kemetco since 2016 to develop the closed-loop lithium-ion battery cathode recycling technologies that form the RecycLiCo™ process. To date the AMY-Kemetco collaboration has led to:
- Testing of various cathode chemistries including NCA, NMC, LCO, and LMO
- Process scale-up and optimization from bench-scale to pilot plant testing
- Test results achieving 99.7% extraction of lithium, nickel, manganese, and cobalt from the RecycLiCo™ pilot plant testing
- Test results achieving 99.99% purity on recycled lithium-ion battery material
- Issuance of US Patent 10246343 and US Patent 10308523
- Paper publication in the peer-reviewed Journal of the Electrochemical Society
- Research and development with a specialized cathode precipitation reactor to produce modern cathode precursor material for direct integration into lithium-ion battery re-manufacturing
In order to commercialize the RecycLiCo™ process, American Manganese and Kemetco will develop and operate a 500 kg/day cathode waste recycling demonstration plant. The purpose of the demonstration plant is to provide a tool for licensing or joint developing RecycLiCo™ with potential industry partners. The proposed services in the contract will include upgrading the existing pilot plant into an operating demonstration plant for engineering data collection and reporting. With the engineering data collected from the demonstration plant, Kemetco will design the commercial lithium-ion battery cathode waste recycling plant with a processing capacity of 5 tonnes of lithium-ion battery cathode waste per day.