Ascend Elements, a Massachusetts-based company that has developed a battery recycling process it calls “hydro-to-cathode,” has signed a supply agreement with Koura, a subsidiary of chemical company Orbia.
Under the agreement, Ascend will supply Koura with up to 5,000 tonnes of recycled lithium carbonate per year, which Koura will use in lithium-ion battery materials for the US and European markets, including lithium hexafluorophosphate (LiPF6), a key electrolyte salt. The supply agreement will enable Koura to produce enough material to support the production of over one million electric vehicles per year.
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Ascend’s hydro-to-cathode process allows the black matter from recycled electric vehicle batteries to be processed directly into new cathode materials, without the usual intermediate step of hydrometallurgically splitting the black matter into individual materials to then produce new cathode materials. The company’s first factory, Apex 1, is scheduled to come on stream in Kentucky in late 2023, so deliveries to Koura are unlikely to begin before 2024.
Koura’s parent company Orbia specializes in fluorinated solutions and is active in the sectors of Polymer Solutions (Vestolit and Alphagary), Building and Infrastructure (Wavin), Precision Agriculture (Netafim), Connectivity Solutions (Dura-Line), and Fluorinated Solutions (Koura). Sameer Bharadwaj, CEO of Orbia, said, “Ascend Elements has been an ideal development partner for our Koura business, given our shared focus on renewable technologies and the massive opportunities for companies pioneering in batteries and energy storage.”
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Ascend Elements CEO Mike O’Kronley said, “Koura is leading the industry’s efforts to incorporate recycled content into materials for lithium-ion batteries. By recovering lithium and other critical metals from used lithium-ion batteries and manufacturing scrap, we are keeping those materials out of landfills while also making EV batteries cleaner and more sustainable.” Ascend has also signed an agreement in principle with Honda, but there is no binding supply agreement there yet.