New Flyer, a bus manufacturer (including both New Flyer Industries Canada ULC and New Flyer of America Inc.), has built a pilot recycling facility along with Li-Cycle Corporation to recycle lithium-ion batteries in Canada.
Li-Cycle Corporation is reportedly the largest Li-ion battery recycler in North America.
This initial pilot battery recycling facility has taken in “45 end-of-life lithium-ion battery modules (used for research and development) totaling 3,200 pounds.”
Notably, this is the first time Li-Cycle is recycling heavy-duty electric vehicle batteries.
Li-Cycle offers a patented recycling system called Spoke & Hub technologies, a closed-loop lithium-ion battery resource recovery service-producing minimal solid waste, and zero liquid and air emissions that can sustainably produce battery-grade lithium, cobalt, and nickel products,” the partners report.
Key differentiators of the Spoke & Hub model include an automated process at Spoke facilities where batteries are received in any state of charge and are mechanically shredded with no sorting, dismantling, discharging, or thermal processing needed.
Patented Hub technology, then intakes the black mass-produced at Spoke plants, processes the materials hydrometallurgically, and outputs high-purity battery chemicals to be redirected to the lithium-ion battery supply chain and broader economy.
In short, recycling process first turns the old batteries into “black mass,” and that is later “refined to recover critical materials such as nickel and cobalt.”
In this manner, Li-Cycle is delivering triple sustainability benefit:
- recovering of critical resources and thus diverting them from landfills
- providing them for re-use in the battery supply chain
- and do so through Li-Cycle’s proprietary clean recycling process that minimizes impact to surrounding environments.
Both New Flyer and Li-Cycle are members of CALSTART, an international nonprofit focused on speeding up the development and adoption of clean technology.
This is a Businesswire Feed; edited by Clean-Future Team