ABTC, TechMet-Mercuria forge partnership

To further leverage its lithium-ion battery recycling expertise, American Battery Technology Company has entered into a strategic partnership with technology metals managing platform TechMet-Mercuria, which includes the manufacturing, sales, and marketing of ABTC-produced recycled metal products and a non-dilutive investment into the company for up to $20 million through the pre-purchase of future recycled battery metal products.

TechMet-Mercuria SA is a Switzerland-based joint venture between TechMet Ltd., a private equity firm dedicated to building world-class technology metals projects, and Mercuria, one of the world's largest integrated independent energy and commodities trading companies and a leader in the energy transition.

Already undergoing the commissioning of a 20,000 metric-ton-per-year commercial-scale lithium-ion battery recycling facility in Nevada, ABTC has been hard at work getting its proprietary recycling technology up to par for the volumes needed in the ongoing energy transition.

Unlike competing recyclers, ABTC's technology "de-manufactures" the batteries into their constituent components.

Rather than mixing it all together through shredding or a combustion process, which often contaminates the final product, thus lowering the overall value, ABTC's process allows for the high-efficiency separation of the engineered structural and support materials in lithium-ion batteries for sale as byproducts such as nickel, cobalt, and manganese, which results in a high-value intermediate black mass filter cake that has the majority of potential contaminants removed.

"There is a wide variety of value that can be recognized through the sale of these types of intermediate black mass filter cakes in such an immature market, and through our strategic business cooperation with TechMet-Mercuria we are able to leverage their team's expertise and capabilities to ensure we have access to the highest tiers of global customers," said American Battery Technology Company CEO Ryan Melsert.

As the company brings additional phases of its recycling processes online, ABTC plans to transition to further processing of the intermediate black mass internally instead of selling it as an intermediate product and will eventually aim to manufacture its own battery-grade nickel, cobalt, manganese, and lithium hydroxide products for sale to domestic-US battery cathode refiners.

"There is an immense and immediate global demand for recycled high purity black mass materials from lithium-ion batteries, especially those materials produced in systems that have removed the majority of other battery components that would have become contaminants," stated Quentin Lamarche, co-managing director of TechMet-Mercuria. "Through this strategic partnership the ABTC and TechMet-Mercuria teams are working to market, transport, and sell these intermediate recycled black mass materials to strategic metal refiners throughout the world."