Altilium Metals, the only company in the UK currently recycling end-of-life electric vehicle batteries and recovering critical metals such as lithium and cobalt at its Devon demonstration line, has appointed Wardell Armstrong as a consultant for the application of an additional EA permit for a pilot plant.

A pilot plant, the next stage in the scale up of its proprietary recycling process that gives full battery circularity direct to cathode active material, will support learnings for industrial scale recycling at the planned Teesside plant.

The pilot facility has been designed to recycle “black” mass battery waste from one electric vehicle per day and will allow characterisation of a mixed stream of feed chemistries, production of samples for qualification by OEMs and experimentation to streamline the process.

The pilot deployment is a key step in Altilium Metals bringing industrial scale recycling capability for EV battery scrap to the UK, giving energy security and supporting its net zero ambitions.

Altilium Metals is a UK based clean technology group with a vision to supply the energy transition metals from existing waste streams already in circulation, such as mine tailings and battery scrap. In Bulgaria, it has the largest resource of copper rich tailings in Eastern Europe, a key material for the electrification of transportation. It will also supply large volumes of domestic and low carbon anode and cathode materials by recycling li-ion scrap, saving precious resources by reducing virgin raw material mining.