Electric vehicle battery recycling firm secures £640k

Hannah Baker

16 May 2024 at 3:10 am·2-min read

Altilium is the only company in the UK recycling and upcycling old EV batteries -Credit:Press Handout

A Devon-based clean tech firm that has developed a way to recycle the materials in electric vehicle batteries for use in new ones has secured hundreds of thousands of pounds from the government. Altilium's project - the first of its kind in the UK - received grant funding of £639,797 from Innovate UK’s Faraday Battery Challenge.

The company, which is planning to open its first UK plant in Teesside, converts end-of-life EV batteries and manufacturing scrap into new materials that can be used directly in new batteries.

Production of the cells will take place at the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre (UKBIC) in Coventry, the UK’s national battery manufacturing scale-up facility, using cathode active materials (CAM) produced at Altilium’s UK pilot facility. CAM, which is made up of lithium and other critical metals, is the most expensive component in an EV battery, as well as the most carbon-intensive.

The company is hoping that by demonstrating at-scale manufacturing of battery cells, the project will advance commercialisation of its technology and pave the way for the construction of the UK’s largest planned commercial plant for EV battery recycling and CAM production.

The planned Teesside recycling plant will be capable of processing 50,000 tonnes of lithium-ion battery “black mass” and produce 30,000 tonnes of CAM a year – enough to meet nearly 20% of expected UK demand by 2030 - the company said.

Altilium's chief operating officer, Dr Christian Marston, said the project would "de-risk investment in further scale-up". He said: “We are excited to lead the way in sustainable battery production through this collaboration with UKBIC."

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Altilium was awarded the funding through the £610m Faraday Battery Challenge (FBC), which is delivering a research and innovation programme that covers 'lab to factory' development, cutting-edge research, national scale-up infrastructur, and skills and training.

The FBC announced £1.5m of funding for leading edge UK battery developers today at Battery Cells and Systems Expo, at the National Exhibition Centre (NEC) in Birmingham.

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