Fortum, Terrafame launch battery material experimental partnership

Fortum and Terrafame are partnering up for an experimental battery recycling project, the Finnish companies announced on June 14.

The project aims to use metals that energy company Fortum recovers from lithium ion battery black mass in Terrafame’s battery chemical production. Operations were set to start in June and the project is expected to span several years.

The partners said fully replacing the mining of pri- mary raw materials, such as nickel and cobalt, with recycled materials was “not possible in the near future”.

However, Tero Holländer, head of the batteries business line at Fortum Battery Recycling, said the partnership aimed to boost sustainability of using Finland’s minerals wealth to develop a domestic batteries industry — and was a step towards “a more self-sufficient European battery manufacturing industry with less need to use import- ed raw materials”.

Fortum said on April 27 it had started commercial operation of its lithium hydrometallurgical battery material recycling facility in Finland.

The company claimed the plant was the largest in Europe in terms of recycling capacity and can also recover 95% of the valuable and critical metals from battery black mass and reuse them to produce new lithium ion battery chemicals.

RecycLiCo Battery Materials said on June 12 it was launching a 50-50 lithium ion battery recycling joint venture in Taiwan with Zenith Chemical Corporation.

The companies will build their initial 2,000 tonne per year commercial plant at an estimated cost of $25 million.

RecycLiCo said both sides had agreed on phased funding for the project.

Zenith’s 50% contribution will be funded in cash while RecycLiCo will have a 10% stake in the joint venture in return for a licence of its technology, with of its interest paid in cash.

Zenith specializes in the production of nickel-based chemicals, including highpurity nickel sulfate for lithium ion batteries.

The partners said that since signing a memorandum of understanding last February, they have worked with an unnamed battery materials company to validate RecycLiCo’s process and confirm the quality of it high-nickel cathode precursors and lithium chemical products.

Under the joint venture deal, which is subject to various regulatory approvals, RecycLiCo will receive a royalty on net product sales and Zenith will receive four million RecycLiCo shares and six million share purchase warrants.

RecycLiCo chairman Paul Hildebrand said Zenith’s technical expertise in chemical processing would help the partnership progress rapidly to starting operations.

RecycLiCo was formerly American Manganese until the company announced its name change last October.

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