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

英国的电动汽车（EV）电池供应链将需要大量的原材料，但一个主要挑战是钴和镍等不可或缺的电池金属在全球范围内供应短缺，俄罗斯是镍和钴的主要来源，中国主导着加工成市场就绪的产品。目前英国的供应链容易受到地缘政治事件的影响。Altilium有限公司发明了一种新颖，高效的工艺，可以从镍，钴，以及来自报废电动车辆锂离子电池的锂，其质量和形式可以直接在电池制造中再利用。该技术及其行业黄金标准的效率性能已经过普利茅斯大学的独立验证，并在欧洲MEDET回收基地的废旧消费锂离子电池工厂运营中得到了验证。这项可行性研究将加速并支持Altilium在英国开发一个新的格林菲尔德工厂的投资决策，该工厂能够处理10，000吨报废锂离子电池，千兆工厂废料和电子废物，到2025年将回收4750吨关键阴极金属并供应给电动汽车电池行业。该工厂是计划在2050年之前满足英国需求的四个工厂中的第一个。到2030年，我们计划有两个工厂投入运营，支持400个新的高价值工作岗位，并产生1.834亿英镑的EBITDA。重要的是，我们的设施将有助于吸引电池制造商到英国（90亿英镑的市场机会），支持英国汽车行业（目前支持170，000个工作岗位）。此外，与使用原始阴极材料相比，英国的电动汽车电池回收行业将降低电动汽车电池生产成本并减少碳排放。

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.