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Li-Cycle to build French battery processing facility
Global Banking & Finance Review®
Company
By Ernest Scheyder
(Reuters) – Li-Cycle Holdings Corp said on Monday it will build a French facility to break down batteries from forklift manufacturer The Kion Group, marking the latest expansion by the rapidly growing recycling company.
The French facility, which is expected to open in 2024 and complement similar sites under development in Germany and Norway, will break down lithium-ion batteries that power Kion’s forklifts and other heavy machinery, giving Li-Cycle a fresh source of batteries to recycle beyond the consumer automobile market.
Li-Cycle declined to disclose how much it is spending on the French operation, though the company has a $40 million budget for the year to build such battery processing facilities across the globe.
“We believe strongly in a regional approach to recycling as our customers begin to localize their own supply chains,” Tim Johnston, Li-Cycle’s executive chairman, told Reuters. “Europe continues to be a growth center for electrification, so we are going to continue to grow there.”
Li-Cycle estimates that a majority of Kion’s 1.7 million forklifts are powered by lithium-ion batteries. Given their heavy use, those batteries are likely to wear down faster than those powering consumer automobiles.
Li-Cycle’s European plan is based in part on its North American hub-and-spoke network, in which the company has built collection and processing facilities across the continent to turn batteries into black mass, which is essentially shredded battery parts.
A central facility under construction in Rochester, New York, will further break down that black mass into lithium, nickel and other metals. Li-Cycle plans for now to produce black mass at its French and other European sites, and then ship that material to Rochester for processing, Johnston said.
The French announcement comes less than a month after European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen visited Li-Cycle’s battery processing facility in Ontario.
(Reporting by Ernest Scheyder; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
Lithium-ion battery recycling involves the process of recovering valuable materials from used batteries to reduce waste and promote sustainability in battery production.
A processing facility is a location where raw materials are transformed into usable products through various methods, including recycling and manufacturing.
Black mass is a term used to describe the mixture of materials obtained from shredded batteries, which contains valuable metals like lithium, nickel, and cobalt.
A regional approach to recycling focuses on localizing recycling operations to minimize transportation costs and enhance efficiency in processing materials.
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