LG Energy, the world's second-largest EV battery maker, has partnered with Huayou Cobalt, the world's biggest cobalt refiner, to build two new battery recycling plants in China.

The partnership will build a pre-treatment plant at LG Energy Solutions' plant in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, to treat the waste and scrap material.   The resultant black mass will be transported to Huayou's material recovery plant in Quzhou in Zhejiang province.  This is the latest in a series of recycling partnerships for Huayou and LG, with the former launching a recycling joint venture with POSCO in 2021, and the latter having recycling deals with Li-Cycle and KEMCO.

Recycling is an increasingly essential part of the lithium-ion supply chain and a key source of cobalt feedstock in particular.  Cobalt is recovered from various routes.  By far the most important is recovery from end-of-life (EoL) batteries and from battery scrap although cobalt is also recovered from the processing of carbide and tungsten sludges, superalloy scrap and converter slag in metal production.

As more EoL batteries become available for recycling, and more gigafactories are commissioned, growth in recycled cobalt from batteries will increase.  Over the period to 2027, secondary cobalt recovery is expected to increase at around 7%py in Project Blue’s base case.  Importantly, without recycled feedstock, there would not be sufficient feedstock generated from mining to produce the refined cobalt needed to meet growing demand.