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The Indian e-waste and battery recycler Attero will expand its plant for recycling of lithium-ion batteries in India while it will open its first plants overseas, in Poland and Ohio, United States.
Attero started originally as an e-waste company but has been involved in lithium-battery recycling since a couple of years, operating a 1,000 tpa plant in India. This is now expanded to 11,000 tonnes per year. The process is a combined pre-processing and a hydrometallurgical plant which produces lithium carbonate, cobalt and various salts. The company also recover graphite.
Meanwhile the company is now setting up plants in Europe and the United States which each will have a capacity of 5,000 tonnes of battery cells. These plants will take waste batteries and turn into black mass but also hydrometallurgical circuits. The plant in Poland will open in the last quarter of 2022 while the Ohio plant will be commissioned in the third quarter in 2023. The investment will be financed from the company’s own balance sheet and through taking on debt.
The company will be able to accept all kinds of waste lithium-ion batteries including LFP.
On top of the plans the company is targeting an expansion to Indonesia which is due in the first quarter of 2024.
The company has also appointed Credit Suisse in to prepare a float on the Indian stock exchange which is set happen in 2024.