On Monday, Battery Resourcers, a Massachusetts-based, vertically integrated battery recycler and manufacturer that lays claim to having invented the world’s most efficient recycling process for lithium-ion batteries, announced the successful raising of a $20 million Series B equity round. The round was led by Orbia Ventures, the venture capital arm of Mexico’s listed agriculture, infrastructure and chemicals multinational Orbia (previously Mexichem), with participation from early stage hard-tech VC investor TDK Ventures, the VC arm of German machine toolmaking giant TRUMPF Group, Israel’s Doral Energy-Tech Ventures, along with InMotion Ventures, the mobility venture capital arm of automaker Jaguar Land Rover.
The capital round will help Battery Resourcers to develop a commercial-scale processing facility with an annual processing capacity of 10,000 tons of batteries, equivalent to 20,000 electric vehicle (EVs) batteries each year.
Battery supply chain disruptor
Unlike other battery recycling companies, Battery Resourcers offers a fundamentally new approach to lithium-ion battery manufacturing, starting with a mixed stream of used lithium-ion batteries and ending with the production of finished, battery-ready cathode active materials. With 97 percent metal recovery, Battery Resourcers can produce Nickel Manganese Cobalt (NMC)-based cathode active materials at 35 percent lower cost, 32 percent lower emissions, and 13 percent less energy consumption compared to virgin cathode production.
The company is also developing a novel process for graphite recovery and purification, which will enable it to return both the cathode and anode active materials back to manufacturers of new batteries.
On the verge
“Battery Resourcers is on the verge of revolutionizing the lithium-ion battery supply chain,” said Battery Resourcers CEO Mike O’Kronley, in a statement on the capital round. “Being able to convert scrap and end-of-life battery materials into finished, cathode active material that can be directly used in making new batteries drives increased profitability and stability for the lithium-ion battery ecosystem. Our investment partners share our vision and passion for scaling this revolutionary process to support the battery material supply chain.”
O’Kronley said Battery Resourcers is also helping the EV industry address several complex environmental and regulatory issues. As lithium-ion batteries are discarded during manufacturing or reach their end of life, finding new ways to recycle and reuse materials will reduce reliance on mined metals, which pose significant environmental and social challenges.
Additionally, millions of EVs will hit the road in the coming years and new regulations mandate recycling of spent batteries and use of recycled metals in new batteries.
“The recycling of critical battery components into cathode active material is a value leap in getting to sustainable and scalable production of lithium-ion batteries,” Orbia CEO Sameer Bharadwa said in an official company statement. “By integrating refinement and materials engineering processes, we believe Battery Resourcers’ approach can stabilize the cathode supply chain in North America while accelerating the shift to a clean, circular future – a goal we are very much invested in at Orbia as we seek to generate innovative solutions that advance life around the world.”
Straight outta Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Battery Resourcers was founded in 2015 in Worcester, Mass. as a spinout from the lab of Professor Yan Wang at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Thanks in large part to early support from the U.S. Advanced Battery Consortium (USABC), a Michigan-based R&D initiative of the U.S. Council for Automotive Research. Battery Resourcers has developed technology to convert mixed streams of lithium-ion batteries (regardless of their original chemistry), to produce various Nickel Manganese Cobalt (NMC)-based cathode active materials.
A key advantage of this process is it takes old battery material and “erases” all memory of previous battery chemistry and then creates a new, finished cathode active material that can be directly used to produce current-generation lithium-ion batteries.
