As many as 4,000 electric vehicle batteries could be recycled and used a source of critical minerals every year after an Australian start-up secured a $12 million funding boost.<\/p>\n
Perth-based Renewable Metals announced the investment on Monday, which it said would help to establish a battery-recycling prototype plant in Western Australia and design its first commercial facility in NSW.<\/p>\n
The announcement comes one month after a study found battery recycling could boost Australia\u2019s economy by $6.9 billion a year in 2050, and following record electric car sales fuelled by rising fuel prices.<\/p>\n
The Series A funding round for Renewable Metals, led by the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, collected investments from firms including Climate Tech Partners and European Metal Recycling.<\/p>\n
The company uses a patented process to recover 95 per cent of the cobalt, lithium nickel, copper and manganese from end-of-life lithium-ion batteries, and uses a single processing line to extract the material and save costs.<\/p>\n
Battery recycling was a growing industry worldwide, Renewable Metals chairman Peter Bevan said, but one that is dominated by Chinese firms.<\/p>\n
\u201cRenewable Metals is building a platform that can compete with leading Chinese recyclers at scale, while enabling recovery of critical minerals,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s critical to building resilient supply chains and reducing dependence on offshore processing as demand accelerates.\u201d<\/p>\n
The $12 million investment will support the company\u2019s prototype plant in Kewdale, Western Australia, that is due to operate from mid-2026 and scale up to recycle up to 2000 tonnes of batteries per year, equivalent to 4000 electric car batteries.<\/p>\n
A commercial plant in NSW\u2019s Hunter Region is planned to follow, and the investment will also be used to expand its research and engineering teams.<\/p>\n
Extracting critical minerals from batteries would become more important as countries introduced recycling mandates and restrictions on exporting waste, Climate Tech Partners co-founder Patrick Sieb said.<\/p>\n
Australian households were also using more large-scale batteries, with more than 250,000 installed under the government\u2019s discount scheme and sales of electric vehicles accelerating during March.<\/p>\n
\u201cEV adoption has been significantly accelerated because of the Iran war,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAustralia needs to capture the value chain of battery recycling instead of simply sending products to Asia.\u201d<\/p>\n