General Motors invests in battery recycling startup Lithion

Car and truck maker General Motors has announced it is participating in a Series A financing round in the Canadian battery recycling company Lithion Recycling. The investment is described as an strategic investment involving validation of Lithion's recovered battery materials for use in the production of new batteries and potential to acquire battery materials.

Lithion is Montreal, Quebec-based startup which has developed a hydrometallurgical process for the recycling of lithium-ion batteries. The company is currently operating a industrial-scale demonstration plant in Montreal while setting up a 7,500 tpa pre-processing plant which will be commissioned in 2023. A larger, hydrometallurgical plant will be opened in 2025.

In January The company received C$125M ($99M) in which the South Korean investment fund IMM Investment Global participated together with Quebec-based institutions. That deal with included an exclusive right for the South Korean conglomerate IS Dongseo to use Lithion's technology on the Korean market. Dongseo's plan is to set up a 7,500 tpa pre-procesing plant and a 15,000 tpa hydrometallurgical plant with an output of 15,000 tpa of battery grade materials. Presumably the size of the North American hydrometallurgical plant will be similar. The company plan to set up multiple recycling plants around the world through similar partnerships.

General Motor's has through its joint venture with LG Energy Solutions, Ultium Cells, previously announced partnerships with Li-Cycle which is setting up a plant for the recovery of production scrap at Ultium Cell's first production site in Ohio.

Read the announcement here.

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