Lithion Recycling is a Canadian venture with a unique battery solution: their close-loop lithium-ion battery recycling technology can recover 95% of battery components. Here, Business Development Manager Jean-Christophe Lambert gives us a short overview of the company and its innovative solutions to reduce environmental impacts from batteries.
Can you tell us a bit about the company and its founders?
Our company was founded in 2018 with the objective to offer a more cost-effective and cleaner solution to recycle lithium-ion batteries. As a spin-off from a process engineering firm, we knew we had all the right tools in-house to bring this technology to life and deploy it at a large scale. Lithion’s business model is to first open commercial projects in Canada using a Spoke and Hub model and to deploy our technology internationally with licensing agreements.
How does your solution contribute to the Digitalisation and Decarbonisation of the energy sector?
Our automated process reduces the amount of dismantling required to recycle batteries. On the environmental side, using hydrometallurgy instead of smelting processes reduces the carbon footprint associated with recycling. Finally, on a broader scale, recycling reduces the pressure on the extraction and refining of battery materials which are two steps of the battery supply chain with major environmental impacts.
What is your company’s proudest achievement to date?
The construction and operation of our demonstration plant is a great achievement for the development and commercialisation of our technology. To build and operate this plant, we were successful in raising 12 million CAD (9.5 million USD) from grants and local partners. In operation since the beginning of 2020, this plant de-risks our scale-up and helps us define the right operating parameters whilst testing a large variety of Li-ion batteries.
What specifically attracts you about the prospect of expanding to the Japanese market?
The Japanese market has a long history of battery and car manufacturing. Being directly connected to these large corporations to implement a recycling plant in Japan is essential. We know that the decision-makers are based in Japan for these companies and this is whom we want to discuss with, as we believe recycling will become more and more strategic for the overall EV supply chain.
How will your solution/product help advance the Japanese energy sector?
Our solution can help generate more battery materials in Japan to feed the local battery supply chain. Our solution also improves the current technologies used in recycling both on the recovery rate and the environmental aspects. We wish to inform battery manufacturers and automakers that they can work with us to reduce the cost and environmental impact of their batteries.