The US Department of Energy has selected Princeton NuEnergy for a $50-million grant to build a closed-loop Cathode-to-Cathode rejuvenation facility in Commerce, Georgia. The award is part of a $110-million project that includes a $60-million cost share from the company.
The plant will process 3,000 tonnes per year of nickel-based lithium-ion battery-manufacturing scrap, recovering and rejuvenating cathode active material and returning it to battery production as battery-grade nickel-manganese-cobalt material. It will use Princeton NuEnergy’s low-temperature plasma-assisted separation (LPAS) technology.
Rather than breaking cathode material down into its constituent elements, as conventional recycling does, the Cathode-to-Cathode process is designed to preserve and rejuvenate its engineered structure. Princeton NuEnergy estimates the cost of the rejuvenated material at about 45% below that of comparable virgin material, and says the process does not materially damage the cathode structure.
By siting the facility alongside battery manufacturing, the company says it can return rejuvenated cathode active material to the production line in roughly seven days.
“By deploying our Cathode-to-Cathode process alongside battery-cell manufacturing, we can transform manufacturing scrap directly back into high-quality cathode active material while lowering costs and strengthening America’s domestic battery-material supply chain,” said Joe Fisher, Chief Commercial Officer of Princeton NuEnergy.
The Commerce plant is intended as a commercial demonstration of the company’s modular Cathode-to-Cathode platform, and a foundation for wider deployment. Princeton NuEnergy expects more than 90% of the facility’s equipment to be standard industrial equipment, and says that following a successful demonstration it plans to add as many as 10 privately financed production lines, potentially reaching about 30,000 tonnes per year by 2035.
“Direct recycling allows us to retain more of the value already engineered into cathode materials rather than breaking them down and rebuilding them from their constituent elements,” said Stephen Snyder, Chief Strategy Officer of Princeton NuEnergy. “This project gives us an opportunity to demonstrate that approach at meaningful commercial scale and directly alongside battery manufacturing.”
Source: Princeton NuEnergy
