Honda to source recycled battery materials from Ascend Elements
Honda has entered into an agreement in principle with US-based Ascend Elements to supply recycled battery materials for its electrified vehicles. Through the cooperation, Honda aims to secure a stable supply of nickel, cobalt and lithium from lithium-ion batteries recycled by Ascend Elements.
As Honda writes in the release, the automaker intends to use these recycled materials in batteries for its electrified vehicles produced in North America. This means that the raw materials, which Ascend Elements is to supply, are likely to be processed into battery cells by the battery joint venture between Honda and LG Energy Solution. Honda does not provide any further details on the agreement in principle that has now been concluded with Ascend Elements – such as delivery quantities or the duration – in the announcement.
Honda only states in general terms that the cooperation was concluded against the background of the company’s “Triple Action to Zero” plan. Honda aims to realise a “circular/resource recycling society” by 2050 in the three areas of CO2 neutrality, clean energy and resource cycling. “By collaborating with various resource recycling businesses, including Ascend Elements, Honda will continue its effort to ensure stable procurement of essential recycled resources and strive for the realization of ‘zero environmental impact’,” Honda wrote in the release.
The joint Honda-LGES battery plant will be located in Fayette County, Ohio. Honda will also convert other US plants for electric mobility to produce components such as battery housings and battery modules. Honda’s first US electric cars will still be based on GM’s Ultium platform (also with LGES cells), before electric Hondas are to follow on their own platform.
As reported, Honda wants to launch 30 electric models worldwide by 2030 and achieve a sales volume of more than two million electric cars per year with these. From 2040 onwards, only battery-electric and fuel-cell vehicles are to be sold under the Honda label.
In the summer of 2022, Ascend Element announced that it would build a factory to produce sustainable battery materials for electric vehicles in southwestern Kentucky. Production at the plant is scheduled to start at the end of 2023. The company will use its proprietary “hydro-to-cathode” technology, which processes black mass from recycled electric vehicle batteries directly into new cathode materials – without the usual intermediate step of hydrometallurgically splitting the black mass into the individual materials in order to then produce new cathode materials from them.
0 Comments