Battery recycling: Plans for Indo-American joint venture
The three parties recently finalised their plans in a letter of intent and named the initial key points. The planned joint venture will focus on operating a joint plant at the Marion Advanced Technology Centre in the US state of Indiana, where joint venture partner ReElement Technologies is already active. The new facility will be both a battery recycling and production plant. With a capacity of 15.5 GWh, the plant will be able to “supply over 315,000 electric vehicles annually,” according to a statement from the partners. The initial investment is 30 million US dollars, the equivalent of around 27 million euros.
“The integrated end-to-end battery & critical minerals lifecycle management facility will host the entire value chain from battery cell testing and segregation for second-life energy storage applications to recycling, mineral refining, engineered materials, and battery-grade products,” the initiators state. The Marion Advanced Technology Centre will be the first operating site, with further sites “as determined by the joint venture parties.” The facility will produce critical materials with a purity level of more than 99.5%, which will then circulate in the US battery ecosystem. A particular focus will be on the recovery of lithium.
Rajat Verma, founder and CEO of Lohum, comments that ReElement and American Metals share his company’s goal of “making battery materials last forever.” He adds, “We believe the joint venture will be instrumental in building resilient critical material supply chains in the US that can sustain themselves through circularity. This is an inspiring development in U.S.-India technology collaboration through market entities.”
We already know Lohum buys batteries from the Mercedes-Benz Energy portfolio. At the beginning of 2023, both parties signed a multi-year supply agreement for used electric vehicle batteries. In this agreement, Mercedes-Benz Energy and Lohum committed to a minimum purchase of 50 MWh per year in the form of several second-life module variants. Lohum also works with MG Motor in India, reusing batteries from MG electric vehicles in second-life Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS).
Lohum claims to be India’s largest producer of sustainable Li-ion battery raw materials through recycling, reuse, and low-carbon refining. The company develops second-life applications primarily focused on the Indian market for stationary and non-automotive storage. Mobile applications include, for example, electric rickshaws. The stationary storage systems range from small systems with six kWh to 1 MWh storage systems.
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