Commences domestic supply of critical battery materials at new Nevada facility in less than a year.

Working tirelessly and expeditiously toward commercialization, American Battery Technology Company excitedly announced the operational start-up of its commercial-scale lithium-ion battery recycling facility in Nevada, implementing its first-of-a-kind lithium-ion battery recycling technologies at industrial scale.

"We are excited to have achieved this major milestone and to now be generating commercial-scale quantities of domestic recycled battery metal products," said American Battery Technology Company CEO Ryan Melsert. "By securing our move-in-ready industrial facility in early 2023, we were able to greatly accelerate our timeline to operations, and the last step of receiving approvals for the updated operational permits for our specific internally-developed processes were received over the past week."

The previously vacant facility at the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center in McCarren, Nevada, has allowed ABTC to accelerate its timeline to begin production of recycled battery materials.

With a capacity to process over 20,000 metric tons of battery feedstock per year when fully ramped, this initial facility will allow the company to begin supplementing its costs toward finishing its other engagements, including its original planned battery recycling plant, also located in Nevada.

Utilizing a strategic de-manufacturing and targeted chemical extraction procedure in order to recover battery materials with high yields, low costs, and minimal environmental impact, ABTC is a first mover that is beginning to see its first-of-a-kind integrated battery recycling operations come to life to help create a domestic supply of the critical minerals and metals needed to drive the low-carbon future.

Different from conventional methods of battery recycling, which often utilize high-temperature furnaces, such as in smelting, or even the less-precise shredding or grinding systems, ABTC's technology results in efficient separation, recovery, and purification of high-value battery-grade products with less environmental footprint and greater savings than these, according to the company.

For its first phase of operations, ABTC will process battery feedstock material into recycled products, including copper, aluminum, steel, a lithium intermediate, and a black mass intermediate material that will be sold through an already established marketing agreement with global metals trader TechMet-Mercuria.

The second phase of this integrated recycling facility will further refine the lithium intermediate into battery-grade lithium hydroxide product, as well as the black mass intermediate into battery-grade nickel, cobalt, manganese, and lithium hydroxide products.

"Our research and development, engineering, project management, and operations teams have been working with the commissioning of this facility as our highest priority, and we are proud to have accelerated our timelines to have installed our first piece of equipment within a month of gaining access to this new site, and to now have begun commercial operations less than six months later," said ABTC COO Andrés Meza. "We appreciate Storey County and Nevada Department of Environmental Protection in their work to permit and establish these processes, and we look forward to our continued engagements as we move through operations."

With funding and support from various government agencies, along with backing from interested automakers such as General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis, ABTC has shown exceptional results in getting its operations online as quickly as it has.

Now that recyclers are beginning to ramp up, stress on the supply chain may begin to alleviate. However, until end-of-life batteries reach their first recycling, a completed circular economy is still a way off.