“Given the scale of future material demand, recycling represents one of the UK’s most critical components for long-term supply chain resilience.”
Our Vision
Altilium was founded to address one of the defining industrial challenges of the next decade – securing a sustainable domestic supply of the critical minerals essential to the UK’s economy, national security and clean energy transition.
By recovering these valuable materials from end-of-life batteries and returning them to the manufacturing supply chain, we are helping reduce dependence on imported primary materials, strengthening industrial resilience and ensuring that the batteries powering tomorrow’s economy can be built from the resources already available today.
We believe the future of battery materials is not simply about mining more – it’s about making better use of the materials we already have. Recycling just 8 tonnes of NMC111 Black Mass saves or defers at least 350 tonnes of hard rock mining.
Onshoring critical mineral supply
As the transition to electrification accelerates, demand for lithium, nickel, cobalt, graphite and other critical battery materials continues to grow rapidly. In the UK alone, annual demand for lithium is forecast to increase by 1,100% between now and 2035.
Today, the UK and Europe remain dependent on external supply chains for these vital resources, with much of the world’s mining, refining and battery materials production concentrated in Asia, exposing the UK to geopolitical tensions, trade disruption and price volatility.
At the same time, the first generation of EV batteries are now reaching end of life, creating both an environmental challenge and a valuable resource opportunity. These batteries are not waste – they are a strategic resource containing lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese and graphite, the building blocks of the clean energy transition.
Decarbonising EV battery production
While EVs are pivotal in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, automotive manufacturers must also meet the challenge of reducing the environmental impact of battery production for a truly sustainable future. Altilium’s innovative recycling processes provide an answer to this challenge, by delivering the UK’s most sustainable battery materials and dramatically cutting GHG emissions associated with battery manufacturing.
A lifecycle assessment (LCA) carried out by sustainability consulting group Minviro found that NMC532 cathode produced with Altilium’s recycled feedstock could be up to 74% lower in climate change impact compared to primary raw materials from a Chinese supply chain (based on the nickel production route with the highest global warming potential).
The LCA also found that Altilium’s EcoAnode™ process delivers a 77% reduction in GHG emissions for production of anode materials compared to primary production from China.
