American Battery Technology Company, an integrated critical battery materials company that is commercializing its technologies for both primary battery minerals manufacturing and secondary minerals lithium-ion battery recycling, has officially been selected for a highly competitive grant worth $150 million dollars of federal investment by the U.S. Department of Energy. According to certain reports, the stated grant will be used to facilitate the construction of a new lithium-ion battery recycling facility. Once up and running, this facility will become the company’s second ever commercial-scale lithium-ion battery recycling facility.
You see, ABTC constructed and commissioned its first lithium-ion battery recycling facility near Reno, Nevada back in fall of 2023. The stated facility brought to the fore its internally-developed processes for the strategic de-manufacturing and targeted chemical extraction of battery materials. This it did to manufacture battery grade products at competitive costs and with low environmental footprint. Such a setup becomes all the more important once you consider how different it is from conventional methods of battery recycling, methods that leverage either high temperature smelting or non-strategic shredding systems.
Coming back to the new facility, though, it is designed to process approximately 100,000 tonnes of battery materials per year from its battery manufacturer, automotive OEM, and community partners. Furthermore, it will bank upon the input from multiple partners including feedstock supplier and critical mineral product offtaker BASF, global engineering firm Siemens, the Clemson University International Center for Automotive Research (CU-ICAR), the Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) ReCell Center, the Argonne National Laboratory Sustainable Transportation Education & Partnerships (STEP) department, and the South Carolina Electric Transportation Network (SCETNetwork). From an operational standpoint, ABTC will employ a proactive and community-driven engagement model to build energy equity, as well as a sustainable circular manufacturing ecosystem, which will look to create an estimated 1,200 construction jobs and 300 operations jobs.
Not just that, the company will also work in direct partnership between communities, educational institutions, industry, government, the National Laboratory system, and the next generation workforce to support equitable and sustainable initiatives that benefit and strengthen local communities, including underserved communities that have historically been left behind. In case that wasn’t enough, then we must mention how ABTC will also work alongside government entities and local educational institutions, such as ANL’s STEP department and Clemson University, to create career pathways in battery recycling and establish a talent pipeline for the domestic battery recycling industry.
“We are extremely honored to be selected for this government investment to further expand our domestic battery recycling operations, and after having gone through nearly one-year of technical and economic evaluation, we appreciate the level of diligence that the government employed in making this decision,” said Ryan Melsert, CEO of American Battery Technology Company. “We are greatly appreciative of the confidence and support we have received from our partners throughout this process and are energized to move forward with our feedstock supply, product offtake, and strategic stakeholders.”
Prior to this $150 million grant, ABTC was awarded, back in October 2021, a grant worth $2 million project from the United States Advanced Battery Consortium (USABC), supported by funding from US DOE, to foster the recycling of battery packs and extraction of battery metals, with USABC cost contributions of $500k. Next up, in October 2022, it was bestowed with a competitive grant to fulfill a $115 million project from the U.S. DOE to construct a commercial-scale lithium hydroxide refinery, with a federal contribution of $57.7 million. Shortly after that, ABTC landed a competitive grant of $20 million from the U.S. DOE to scale, optimize, and commercialize three next generation technologies, and therefore, enhance the performance of its recycling operations, with a federal contribution of $10 million.
Then, in March 2024, ABTC was also awarded qualifying advanced energy project tax credits (48C) for $20 million. This it would go on to invest in capital expenditures of its first battery recycling facility near Reno, Nevada. Within the same month, the company would secure more of those qualifying advanced energy project tax credits (48C) worth $40 million, something which it used towards capital expenditures of its second battery recycling facility.
