Westborough-based battery recycling company Ascend Elements has reached an agreement with South Korean battery company EcoPro Group to purchase recycled battery materials for EcoPro’s products.
EcoPro provides lithium and metal cathode active materials to North American electric vehicle battery manufacturers. Ascend recycles EV batteries and battery scrap from manufacturing, converting scrap into new materials. Under the new partnership, Ascend will provide EcoPro with recycled battery materials so that they can transform those materials into new battery-compatible materials for their battery manufacturing clients, according to an Ascend press release Thursday.
Financial terms were not disclosed.
This is the second time in the past few months that Ascend has signed a deal with the South Korean company, after Ascend received a $50 million investment from SK ecoplant in September to help commercialize Ascend’s hydro-cathode process technology. It’s the second time.
Battery materials can be environmentally taxing as they require the mining, conversion and refining of materials, as they require the use of fossil fuel-powered machinery as well as chemicals and large amounts of water. I have. The process of synthesizing batteries requires a lot of energy, which can only be produced by burning fossil fuels. By creating a closed loop with recycled materials, manufacturers no longer need to mine a lot of new raw materials.
The new process also includes SK Battery America, which makes batteries for the Ford F-15 Lightning and VW ID.4.EV. Ascend Elements receives manufacturing scrap from the SK Battery America plant in Georgia and recycles materials at its Covington, Georgia facility to recover recycled battery materials such as metals, salts and precursor cathode materials. EcoPro purchases recycled battery materials from Ascend and uses the materials to manufacture new cathode active materials. This material is purchased by SK Battery America and used to manufacture Ford and VW EV batteries.
According to the company, Ascend can recover up to 98% of key battery components with lower carbon emissions compared to traditional cathode manufacturing methods.
