Li-Cycle expects federal loan for battery recycling

The battery recycling start-up Li-Cycle has received a $375 million conditional loan commitment from the US Department of Energy in support of its planned processing facility in upstate New York. Li-Cycle already accepts lithium-ion batteries for recycling at four sites and uses a process called submerged shredding to reduce the batteries to “black mass,” an intermediate containing the valuable metals. The processing facility, in Rochester, will extract lithium carbonate, nickel sulfate, and cobalt sulfate from black mass at a capacity equivalent to 90,000 metric tons of used battery material. The DOE loan comes from Inflation Reduction Act funds and will carry the same relatively low interest rate as 10-year Treasury notes.