Battery sector | A recycling plant will be built in the Montreal region

Recyclage Lithion will build an electric vehicle battery recovery plant in the Montreal region this summer with the help of the Quebec government.

Andre Dubuc
The Press

Julien Arsenault
The Press

The announcement was made Friday morning in the company of Ministers Pierre Fitzgibbon for the Economy, and Benoit Charrette, for the Environment, as well as Guy LeBlanc, big boss of Investissement Québec, the government’s investor arm. Quebec grants 22.5 million to Recyclage Lithion.

This is the second tranche of a $125 million financing. The first installment was announced last January. The money is used to build a first commercial lithium-ion battery recycling plant.

The black powder lithium-ion battery crushing plant will have a processing capacity of 7,500 tons of batteries per year, or the equivalent of the batteries of 25,000 electric vehicles. Construction begins this summer and the plant will be operational in 2023. The choice of site is not yet official, indicates Benoit Couture, president of Recyclage Lithion.

There are approximately 133,000 EVs registered in Quebec at the moment.

At the same time, the Quebec company will open an on-site R&D center that will be responsible for the detailed engineering of a future hydrometallurgy plant, whose construction should begin in 2023.

This second facility will be used to refine and extract graphite, nickel, lithium, cobalt and manganese from the black powder from the crushing plant. Thanks to its technology, the company claims, it will be able to recover up to 95% of battery components, which can then be reused by battery manufacturers.

“I’m a big believer that mines will be urban in 15 years,” said Minister Fitzgibbon during an editorial meeting with La Presse on March 28. The day when the adoption of electric vehicles will reach a plateau, most likely the recycling of batteries could be enough to have the components of lithium, graphite, cobalt and nickel, for example. We could technically no longer operate mines. »

Over the next two years, Recyclage Lithion will invest more than $80 million in this first phase of its project. The company’s activities should eventually generate nearly 160 jobs.

Government assistance

The government assistance includes an equity investment, through Investissement Québec, of $15 million in the share capital of Recyclage Lithion. Grants totaling $7.5 million are being provided to the company ($2.79 million) and a subsidiary of the company ($4.71 million) through the Green Economy 2030 Plan.

“The Lithion Recycling project is an essential link in our battery strategy. This support will help ensure local supply and continue to develop Quebec expertise in battery recycling,” said Pierre Fitzgibbon, Minister of the Economy, in a press release.

The Government of Quebec had granted assistance of nearly 5 million to this same company in 2019 during the construction of its pilot plant in the borough of Anjou, in Montreal.

For the time being, Lithion is the only known player in the ecosystem in the recycling of EV batteries in Quebec.

“We will continue to invest in projects such as Recyclage Lithion in order to strengthen Quebec’s position not only as a global supplier of components and minerals for batteries, but also as a responsible player committed to promoting green and sustainable economy,” said Guy LeBlanc, CEO of Investissement Québec (IQ).

A second factory of 300 million will follow

The construction of the hydrometallurgy plant, during the second phase, will begin in 2023 for commissioning in 2025. The Bécancour industrial park, at the heart of the Quebec battery industry, is currently the preferred site for receive this second plant. The required investment amounts to 300 million.

“There, we will look with them what we can do for a recycling plant here,” said Minister Fitzgibbon in a meeting with La Presse on Monday. It is not excluded that the government intervenes again at this stage.

Lithion Recycling is owned by its management, IQ, IMM Investment Global, Korea, and Fondaction. Other partners will be added in the next few months, specifies Benoit Couture, its president, in an interview.

Little known, IMM Investment Global has business ties with Korean manufacturers of cathodes and battery cells, including LG, Samsung, SKI, Ecopro and POSCO, and with the car manufacturer Hyundai.

In January 2022, Lithion Recycling confirmed the granting of an exclusive license to operate its lithium-ion battery recycling technology in the Korean market to IS Dongseo Company.