Blue Whale Materials (BWM) has received a contracted grant award of more than $55 million from the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains (MESC) under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Battery Materials Processing and Battery Manufacturing Program.

Approximately $3 million of the grant will go towards workforce development and community outreach through expanded partnership programs with The Delaware Tribe of Indians, Blue Star Recyclers, Tri County Tech, and James Emmett and Company.

The selection is part of BWM’s larger $110-million expansion initiative, which will enable BWM’s Bartlesville, Oklahoma facility to process up to 50,000 tons of battery feedstock annually and produce enough critical minerals to power more than 100,000 electric vehicles annually.

The expanded operations will convert 3.5 times more end-of-life batteries and production scrap into Blacksand, a high-purity, dry, mixed-metal precursor that stands apart from conventional black mass. This state-of-the-art process recovers up to 98% of the cobalt and nickel in lithium-ion batteries and production scrap and significantly reduces contaminants such as aluminum, copper, and fluorine—resulting in a high metal recovery rate and creating an optimized input for downstream metal refiners and battery material manufacturers.

BWM’s Blacksand is a highly concentrated cobalt, nickel, and lithium mixed metal intermediate product optimized for the next step in refining. BWM’s Blacksand is dry, has low copper and aluminum content, and has had organics and impurities removed.

BWM is a portfolio company of Ara Partners, a global private equity firm that is decarbonizing the industrial economy.