Lithion Recycling’s technology that allows it to reuse 95% of the content of old electric vehicle batteries to make new ones has found takers in Korea. A major Korean industrial group is committed to building two factories in the country that will transform the equivalent of 20,000 batteries per year into 15,000 tonnes of fully reusable materials.
The multimillion-dollar deal is the first of its kind for Lithion and comes the day after the Anjou-based SME announced it had closed a $125 million financing round. dollars. The main investor in this stage is also from Korea. This is the fund manager IMM Investment, whose investment portfolio is valued at US$5 billion. Fondaction, the investment fund affiliated with the CSN, is also one of the new investors.
The amount raised will enable Lithion to erect three new buildings this year in Montreal’s east end: a used battery processing plant, a second processing plant for the materials resulting from this processing into reusable materials and a technology development center . In parallel, the company will supervise the construction in Korea of two factories similar to the ones it plans to open here, with one exception: Lithion actually sells its technology to the operator of these factories, a consortium specialized in construction and environment called IS Dongseo.
“We sell them the components, then we license them the rights to use our technology, and we also provide technical support afterwards,” explains Recyclage Lithion’s president and CEO, Benoît Couture. ” [Cette entente] is great news for us, because IS Dongseo chose us after spending six months testing and comparing the various recycling technologies that already exist all over the world. »
Lithion has developed a two-step process for dismantling then treating the materials contained in the lithium ion batteries of electric vehicles. The first step is to recover the plastic and traditional metals contained in these components: aluminum, copper and steel. The second consists in transforming the mixture of more strategic materials which go almost exclusively to the manufacture of new batteries: lithium, cobalt, manganese, graphite, etc.
Since the raw material is found under the hood of electric vehicles that circulate mainly in large urban centers, Lithion has designed a technology that can be used in this type of environment. “It’s like operating an urban mine, except that very little polluting gas is emitted,” illustrates Mr. Couture. And we avoid having to dig other mines, real ones, to produce these metals. »
Twenty-five factories in 2035
There is currently very little competition for Lithion in the battery recycling market for the transport sector. Its most serious rivals use antiquated technology, or they are at a preliminary stage of development. “We have at least two years in advance”, estimates Benoît Couture.
It’s like operating an urban mine, except that very little polluting gas is emitted. And we avoid having to dig other mines, real ones, to produce these metals.
This allows the Montreal company to think big. Its goal is to have twenty-five factories worldwide by 2035, including two in Quebec, ten in Europe and five in Asia. “The telephone is not ringing, so our challenge is rather to temporize to avoid having to build all these factories at the same time”, affirms the president of Lithion.
“We have advanced discussions with North American recyclers, and the interest is at least as great in Europe. We didn’t expect to develop the Asian market so quickly, but that’s where we will have our first partner! »
The search for partners will be key for Lithion, which has developed a sought-after technology, but for which it is necessary to build factories requiring significant investments. To put the finishing touches on the project to build its second plant in Montreal, the company already anticipates that it will have to complete an additional financing stage in order to raise between $200 and $300 million.
“The good news is that our plan is viable even if we only occupy 15% of the global battery recycling market,” says Benoît Couture. There is therefore room for potential competitors to emerge without this threatening Lithion’s profitability, adds its president.
The battery market has not stopped growing, given the ever more urgent demand from the transport sector for electric vehicles. “Battery recycling will be a major issue wherever transport electrification plans are implemented. »
And with virtually every advanced economy on the planet effectively having transportation electrification targets in place, the demand for battery recycling continues to grow.