Li-Cycle will use an evaporation and crystallization system from Veolia Water Technologies at its lithium-ion battery recycling plant in New York to help process materials for new batteries.
The Rochester facility will use Veolia’s HDP crystallization technology in the final state of the battery recycling process. The process will optimize the creation of nickel sulfate and cobalt sulfate from lithium-ion batteries, transforming them into high purity raw materials that are ready to be used in new batteries.
The crystallizers will be used to produce approximately 42,000 to 48,000 metric tons of nickel sulfate each year and 6,500 to 7,500 metric tons of cobalt sulfate a year, Veolia says. The materials then can be sold to battery manufacturers.
Especially with the increase in electric vehicle adoption, but also with battery uses such as energy storage systems increasing, battery recycling has also become more of a focus. The transportation battery recycling market is expected to boom through 2030.
With that growth comes new recycling operations and targets.
Ascend Elements, formally Battery Resourcers, is building one of the largest battery recycling facilities in North America and when it opens later this year will have the capacity to process 30,000 tons of lithium-ion batteries and scrap each year. Mercedes-Benz is building its own battery recycling plant in Germany, which it will use the renewed materials to make more electric vehicles. Ford and Volvo are participating in a program by Redwood Materials to recycle electric vehicle batteries in the United States.
Li-Cycle says the New York facility will help make the equivalent of nearly 225,000 electric vehicle batteries each year. The facility is expected to be fully operational in 2023.
Veolia Water Technologies has more than 1,000 installations of crystallization and evaporation systems in more than 30 countries, that also help with water treatment and waste as well as energy efficiency in oil and gas, paper and power industries as well as metals.