Redwood Materials to recycle Ultium Cells’ production waste
In the case of the cooperation now concluded, Redwood will recycle production waste from Ultium Cells’ plants in Warren, Ohio, and Spring Hill, Tennessee. Ultium Cells can produce a total of more than 80 GWh of battery cells per year in these two factories, and a third plant in Michigan is currently under construction. The majority of the waste from the production process is to go to Redwood in future.
The recycling specialist points out in the press release that despite the enormous increase in production rates, the reject rate in cell production is still between five and ten per cent on average. Extrapolated to Ultium Cells’ plants, this corresponds to several truckloads per day or around 10,000 tonnes of material per year.
Although Redwood started as a battery recycling company, it has long since expanded its ambitions beyond pure recycling and also wants to produce its own battery precursors from recycled raw materials. In April, Redwood announced that it had reached a recycling capacity of 40,000 tonnes, which corresponds to 15 to 20 GWh of battery capacity. The company describes the hydrometallurgy plant in Nevada as the first ‘nickel mine’ and ‘lithium supply source’ on a commercial scale to go into operation in the USA in over a decade – even if raw materials are not extracted there in the sense of a mine, but rather from used batteries and production waste.
For Redwood as a recycling company, however, not only its own facilities for processing the material but also the procurement of the materials are extremely important – without material, the facilities cannot run or be utilised to capacity. As there are currently still relatively few used batteries on the market (which Redwood secures through agreements with car manufacturers), partnerships with cell manufacturers are also important. There are partnerships with Panasonic and AESC, for example.
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