AGL has signed a tentative deal to look at setting up a lithium battery recycling centre in Newcastle, just months after the partner in this deal scored $8 million to scale up its technology.
Battery recycling start-up Renewable Metals, which signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), already has two pilot plants in Perth and is building a larger demonstration plant which can recycle 1,500 tonnes of battery waste a year.
It plans to have that facility running within the next 12 months.
The startup’s latest deal will see it develop a pre-feasibility study into setting up a lithium battery recycling facility that can handle 5000 tonnes of waste a year, at AGL’s proposed Hunter Energy Hub in the New South Wales city.
If this project were to go ahead, at this stage it will be Renewable Metals’ first full-scale plant.
“The potential facility could not only help us achieve our environmental goals but could also create valuable job opportunities and stimulate economic growth within the community,” says Renewable Metals CEO Luan Atkinson.
“Renewable Metals is excited to be working with the AGL to further our vision to close the loop in the battery value chain. We’re looking forward to actively contributing to the transformation of the Hunter region into a renewable energy powerhouse.”
Simpler, cheaper process
In October, the startup was given $8 million by the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CECF) to scale up its technology, which it says can extract more than 95 per cent of lithium and high amounts of nickel, cobalt, copper and manganese from lithium-ion batteries without having to finely grind the batteries into a substance called ‘black mass’.
Its process uses an alkali-based leach instead of acids, which need to be countered with equally strong base chemicals, and can also be used on the increasingly popular lithium iron phosphate batteries which are harder to recycle.
Renewable Metals says the process uses less energy, fewer chemicals, and results in a smaller volume of byproducts, all of which results in an up to 30 per cent drop in costs compared to existing processes.
The pre-feasibility study into a Newcastle site will look at what infrastructure and engineering will be needed, and what regulatory approvals and licences will be necessary to build the project.
The company is developing a template for engineering design for a bigger plant at its upcoming demonstration facility, which will be capable of processing up to 1,500 tonnes of battery waste annually.
Setting up new waste chains for lithium batteries
Renewable Metals is not the first battery recycler in Australia. That gong goes to Envirostream which launched the country’s first e-waste facility in 2018, as lithium battery waste from small-scale computers such as laptops and phones that litter landfills has been as issue for years.
CSIRO estimates that just 10 per cent of lithium batteries are recycled, compared to 99 per cent of lead acid batteries which have existing recycling supply chains already in place.
But figuring out what to do with larger versions that power electric vehicles is becoming a concern for both policymakers and potential EV owners, particularly given federal government projections that it could become an annual 136,000 tonne waste problem by 2036.
CSIRO estimated in 2018 – before EV sales had really taken off in Australia – that recovering lithium battery materials at home could be worth up to $3.1 billion. Experts have long called for a domestic “urban mining” industry to be establish to cash in on the opportunity, and solve the end-of-life problem for EV batteries.
For coal power plant owners looking for new uses for their sites, it’s an opportunity to use the land and secure a source of critical battery metals at the same time.
“The reuse of critical minerals through battery recycling will be an important part of the energy transition. This potential facility could recycle batteries from electric vehicles to grid scale storage,” says AGL general manager for energy hubs, Travis Hughes.
“Our current strategy is to transition the Liddell and Bayswater sites into the Hunter Energy Hub, by bringing renewable energy generation and associated industries to those sites.”
