American Battery Technology Company, an integrated critical battery materials company that is commercializing its technologies for both primary battery minerals manufacturing and secondary minerals lithium-ion battery recycling, has been selected for $150 million dollars of federal investment by the UA Department of Energy to be applied towards the construction of its second lithium-ion battery recycling facility.

This expansion of the company’s commercial operations of next-generation lithium-ion battery recycling technologies further develops the North American closed-loop battery metals supply chain.

This second facility is designed to process approximately 100,000 tonnes of battery materials per year from its battery manufacturer, automotive OEM, and community partners.

This project will leverage multiple partners including feedstock supplier and critical mineral product offtaker BASF, global engineering firm Siemens, the Clemson University International Center for Automotive Research (CU-ICAR), the Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) ReCell Center, the Argonne National Laboratory Sustainable Transportation Education & Partnerships (STEP) department, and the South Carolina Electric Transportation Network (SCETNetwork).

ABTC constructed and commissioned its first lithium-ion battery recycling facility near Reno, Nevada in Fall 2023, which implements its internally-developed processes for the strategic de-manufacturing and targeted chemical extraction of battery materials in order to manufacture battery grade products at competitive costs and with low environmental footprint. These processes are fundamentally different than conventional methods of battery recycling, which generally utilize either high temperature smelting or non-strategic shredding systems.

Prior US DOE investments in ABTC Lithium-Ion Battery Recycling include:

• October 2021: ABTC was awarded a competitive grant for a $2-million project from the United States Advanced Battery Consortium (USABC) supported by funding from US DOE to foster the recycling of battery packs and extraction of battery metals, with USABC cost contributions of $500k.

• November 2022: ABTC was awarded for a competitive grant for a $20-million project from the US DOE to scale, optimize, and commercialize three next generation technologies to even further enhance the performance of its recycling operations, with a federal contribution of $10 million.

• March 2024: ABTC awarded qualifying advanced energy project tax credits (48C) for $20 million to be applied towards capital expenditures of its first battery recycling facility near Reno, Nevada.

• March 2024: ABTC awarded qualifying advanced energy project tax credits (48C) for $40 million to be applied towards capital expenditures of its second battery recycling facility.

US DOE Investments in ABTC Lithium Hydroxide (LiOH) from Claystone Manufacturing:

• October 2021: ABTC was awarded a competitive grant supporting a $4.5-million project from the US DOE for the demonstration of its battery-grade lithium hydroxide production from Nevada claystone resources, with federal contributions of $2.27 million.

• October 2022: ABTC was awarded a competitive grant supporting a $115 million project from the US DOE to construct a commercial-scale lithium hydroxide refinery, with a federal contribution of $57.7 million.

These battery recycling technologies were developed in-house by the ABTC R&D, project management, and engineering team members, many of whom were previously members of the founding Tesla Gigafactory design and engineering teams. ABTC intends to utilize these significant experiences in collaboration with project partners to scale processes and bring first-of-kind commercial-scale facilities online and leveraging this expertise to de-risk ABTC’s commercialization of this second battery recycling facility.