Many players are talking about it, but only a few are making it a reality: circular economy. In an exclusive interview with Battery-News, Dr. Christian Marston, co-founder, president, and COO of British battery materials and recycling company Altilium, explains what his staff does differently from the competition and how it recently succeeded in producing a battery from 100 percent recycled material.
Battery-News: What is your company’s guiding principle?
Dr. Christian Marston: We believe in a sustainable circular economy and have made it our mission to recover battery materials efficiently – with the aim of reintegrating them into new batteries in the best possible way. Our focus is primarily on critical metals such as cobalt, nickel, and lithium.
Battery-News: What distinguishes your recycling process from traditional pyrometallurgical or hydrometallurgical procedures?
Marston: Our technology, the “EcoCathode” process, works with industrially available but comparatively eco-friendly chemicals. This enables us to achieve recovery rates of more than 90 percent for critical metals. In contrast to conventional pyrometallurgical processes, which are very energy-intensive and emit carbon dioxide, our process is low-carbon. We recover up to 99 percent of the graphite contained – which is quite unique. We want to refurbish all battery components as much as possible instead of just recovering them at raw material level. The result is a genuine upcycling process: We extract high-quality components from old NMC111 cells with a service life of 15 years, which we then process into modern NMC811 precursors.
“Recycled resources can match and even surpass the performance of virgin mined materials.”
Battery-News: Together with the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre, Altilium has produced a battery from 100 percent recycled material. How did you achieve this?
Marston: Our business model is based on three main pillars: the recovery of critical raw materials from used batteries, the production of active cathode materials from these recycled materials – which means genuine upcycling –, and the return to a local supply chain. As part of a government-funded project, we built and successfully tested battery cells made from fully recycled cathode active material with the Imperial College London. The performance was comparable to that of cells made from primary material – and in some cases it was even better. This shows that recycled materials are indeed practical and efficient. So, the first step in validating our recycled materials was the collaboration with the Imperial College London, which revealed that recycled resources can match, and even surpass, the performance of virgin mined materials. This was followed by the production of pouch cells at UKBIC with levels of recycled materials that meet the requirements of the new EU Battery Regulation. Initial testing at UKBIC has also been positive, so the cells have now been sent to an automotive OEM for further validation.
“The recycling of inactive components such as separators or electrolytes is technically complex but will certainly be an issue in the long term.”
Battery-News: Are you also working on recycling so-called inactive materials, such as separators or electrolytes?
Marston: We are currently concentrating on recovering the most valuable components, especially the active materials such as nickel, cobalt, manganese, and graphite. The recycling of inactive components such as separators or electrolytes is technically more complex and not yet our focus – but it will certainly be an issue in the long term.
Battery-News: How do you manage to scale up – also against the background of political framework conditions such as the Critical Raw Materials Act?
Marston: Our technical development center in southwest England is already producing material on a kilogram scale. From this, we are developing standardized flowsheets that we are scaling up to our large-scale industrial plant in Teesside. This will be one of the largest battery recycling plants in Europe, and we benefit from the proximity to existing chemical parks with access to green energy – a real locational advantage.
“The key lies in jointly designing validation processes and providing transparent evidence of material performance.”
Battery-News: How do you convince OEMs to use recycled materials?
Marston: Demand has definitely increased – especially since the new battery regulations at EU level stipulate concrete quotas for recycled content. We have already carried out test runs with several OEMs and cell manufacturers – with very positive results. The key lies in jointly designing validation processes and providing transparent evidence of material performance. This is exactly what we are doing with partners such as the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre.
Battery-News: Many players talk about the circular economy, but comparatively few actually put it into practice. What makes Altilium different?
Marston: We pursue a clear urban mining approach: Old batteries are our mines of the future. We want to keep the materials entirely in the region – no more black mass exports to Asia. To achieve this, we are developing a pipeline from disassembly and recycling to the production of new battery materials: low-carbon, local, and circular. This is what fundamentally sets us apart from many of our competitors.
