Teesside facility is projected to process waste from 150,000 electric vehicles each year using bioleaching technology.
Clean technology group, Altilium, has announced an investment of $5 million (just over £4 million) from Japanese trading and investment group, Marubeni Corporation as part of its Series B funding round.
This investment will be put towards Altilium’s electric vehicle (EV) battery recycling facility in Teeside.
Once operational, the facility aims to process battery waste from 150,000 EVs annually, producing 30,000 metric tonnes of low-carbon cathode active materials (CAM). These materials, such as lithium manganese oxide, are essential components of lithium-ion batteries, which can be put back into manufacturing. This output is projected to meet 20 per cent of the UK’s CAM requirement by 2030.
The company’s EcoCathode technology, which will be used in the new plant, recovers battery metals, including lithium, cobalt, and nickel, from black mass from end-of-life EV batteries using bioleaching. Altilium reports that it can recover over 95 per cent of valuable battery metals.
Marubeni’s investment will allow the company to undertake engineering studies, secure land, obtain planning and permitting approvals, and recruit leadership for the Teesside project. The partnership aligns with Marubeni’s growing presence in the global battery recycling market, including recent investments in the United States.
Altilium and Marubeni have been working together since the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding in 2023, which confirmed both company’s commitment to developing a closed loop EV battery recycling business in the UK.
Kamran Mahdavi, CEO of Altilium, commented on the partnership: “Together, we are advancing our mission to create a UK closed-loop supply chain, reduce dependency on imported materials and lowering the environmental footprint of battery production. This partnership marks a major milestone in establishing a truly circular economy for the UK’s battery industry.”
The investment follows Altilium’s Series A funding round last year, which raised $12 million (£9.6 million) from SQM Lithium Ventures.
In October, Altilium also partnered with Jaguar Land Rover to test the production of new battery cells using recovered CAM.
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