Ecobatt, Enviropacific awarded $3.5 million for battery recycling projects

The Victorian Government has announced two grants totalling $3.5 million awarded to assist in establishing lithium-ion processing and recycling facilities, which it says will increase the state’s capacity to process batteries by 19,500 tonnes annually.

Ecobatt was awarded $2.5 million and Enviropacific Services $1 million as part of the Circular Economy Infrastructure Fund Hazardous Waste third round

According to the statement, recycler Ecobatt (part of the Ecocycle) will establish a lithium battery processing and recycling plant in Campbellfield and environmental remediation business Enviropacific will establish a new plant in Stawell.

Sustainability Victoria describes Ecobatt’s plant as featuring “state of the art technology and recover[ing] valuable critical metals, solvents, and plastic components from each battery cell. The plant will have a processing capacity of 4 tonnes per hour which will provide flexibility to scale up the operation to meet Australia’s rapidly expanding recycling demands.”

The project aims to recover and recycle up to 95 per cent of each lithium battery cell.

The Enviropacific project is referred to as “building a new plant to process and recover key materials from lithium-ion battery waste (black mass) and reintegrating them into the Australian market.”

Each would improve on the small proportion of lithium-ion battery waste currently processed nationally.

Environment minister Steve Dimopoulos said, “These batteries are found in everyday items Victorians use and these projects are adding much needed capacity to our recycling system, enabling valuable resources to be saved from landfill.”

Picture: credit Ecobatt