Ascend Elements team members and partners in Hopkinsville, Kentucky celebrated a major milestone in the construction of North America’s first electric vehicle battery cathode precursor (pCAM) manufacturing facility this week. Turner Construction Company, Kokosing Construction and SSOE Group worked together to place the final piece of structural steel on the 315,000 square foot pCAM leaching building. The pCAM building is one of many large structures under construction on the 140-acre Apex 1 campus.
“I’d like to thank and congratulate our construction partners on a safe and successful 2023 and achieving 244,961 labor hours and no lost time or recordable safety incidents during the year,” said Wenqing Su, VP of Global Capital Projects at Ascend Elements.
pCAM is an engineered material made to precise microstructure specifications for use in electric vehicle batteries. While most of the world’s pCAM is made in China from primary (mined) metals, U.S.-based Ascend Elements is commercializing an ultra-efficient method to make sustainable pCAM from recycled lithium-ion battery materials. The patented Hydro-to-Cathode® direct precursor synthesis process eliminates several intermediary steps in the traditional cathode manufacturing process and provides significant economic and carbon-reduction benefits. Several peer-reviewed studies have shown Ascend Elements’ recycled battery materials perform as well as similar materials made from virgin (or mined) sources.
The Apex 1 project is funded in part by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and grants from the U.S. Department of Energy. Construction will continue into 2025. When finished, the $1 billion Apex 1 campus will produce engineered battery materials for 750,000 EVs per year.