The plant will recover metals using spent Li-ion batteries from mobile phones, laptops, and other sources
Tech solutions provider company Hydromet Technology Solutions is looking to set up a 1,000 tonnes per annum (TPA) lithium-ion battery recycling plant in Gujarat, a senior official told PV magazine.
Navin Mittal, founder and chief executive officer of Hydromet Technology Solutions, informed the publication that it has received approval from the Pollution Control Board for the plant.
Additionally, it plans two more such facilities, one in some other state and the other overseas. The combined capacity in the three planned operations (including the Gujarat plant) will be 10,000 TPA.
The plant will recover metals using spent Li-ion batteries from mobile phones, laptops, and other sources including electric vehicle (EV) batteries and expects the EV batteries to dominate the raw material mix in the next five years.
The report added that the plant will be based on patented Hy-BREC technology developed by Hydromet to recover all valuable metals present in lithium-ion batteries.
Speaking to pv magazine, Dr Lakshmi Vaideeswaran, corporate strategy and planning at Hydromet, said, “Ours will be a zero-waste plant with an aim of 100 percent circularity. The process developed by us can recover any metal present in the batteries as well as the carbon which is also saleable. Currently, our process is unique in the sense that it is not restricted to batteries of any specific application or chemistry (barring lithium ferro phosphate).”
Dr Vaideeswaran said the plant will be spread across 28,000 sq feet. The company has also developed other technologies and filed patents for the manufacture of precipitated silica from rice husk ash and the method to extract vanadium from vanadium-bearing slags.
Hydromet plans to set up a multipurpose plant for technology scale-up and commercialization to fast-track its go-to-market efforts.
