Establishing feasibility of a novel industrial plant to recover critical metals from end-of-life EV batteries for re-entry into a circular battery supply chain

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Significant volumes of raw materials will be needed for an electric vehicle (EV) battery supply chain in the UK, but one major challenge is that indispensable battery metals such as cobalt and nickel are in short supply globally, with Russia being a leading source of nickel and cobalt, and China dominating the processing into market ready products, the current UK supply-chain is vulnerable to geopolitical events.Altilium Ltd have invented a novel, highly efficient process that extracts nickel, cobalt, and lithium from end-of-life electric vehicle lithium-ion batteries in a quality and format that can be directly reused in battery manufacture. The technology and its industry gold standard efficiency performance have been independently validated by the University of Plymouth and proven in plant operation on spent consumer lithium-ion batteries at our MEDET recycling site in Europe.This feasibility study will accelerate and support the investment decision regarding Altilium developing a new UK greenfield site capable of processing 10,000 MT of end-of-life lithium-ion batteries, gigafactory scrap and electronic waste, enabling 4750 MT of critical cathode metals to be recovered and supplied back into the EV battery industry by 2025\. This site is the first of four planned to meet UK demand until 2050\.By 2030, we intend to have 2 sites operational, supporting 400 new high-value jobs and generating EBITDA of £183.4m. Critically, our facilities will help attract battery manufacturers to the UK (£9bn market opportunity), supporting the UK automotive industry (currently supporting 170,000 jobs).Furthermore, an EV battery recycling industry in the UK would lower the cost of EV battery production and decrease carbon emissions compared to the use of virgin cathode materials.