Lithium Australia makes batteries through recycling

Perth’s Lithium Australia (ASX: LIT) has announced it has successfully created lithium ion batteries (LIBs) from materials recycled from spent batteries.

The company, which operates mines and is developing a recycling technology with nuclear organisation, ANSTO, produced lithium-ferro-phosphate batteries at its VCPC pilot plant in Brisbane.

As reported in @AuManufacturing news in August, Lithium successfully refined lithium phosphate from spent lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), and produced cathode powders.

The company also recovered nickle and cobalt in a form suitable for commercial refining.

Now it has applied its proprietary nanotechnology to make 2,032 coin-cell LIBs, completing the re-birthing of batteries from recycled materials.

The company is now making larger commercial-format battery cells.

Lithium said it was in discussion with industry players overseas to establish a supply chain for spent cathode material produced from recycling batteries.

Managing director Adrian Griffin said: “The production of LIBs from recycled battery material represents a genuinely renewable pathway for the battery industry.”

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