Lithion Technologies has begun dismantling electric-vehicle batteries at its new commercial-scale recycling plant in the Montreal suburbs, taking a key step in establishing itself as a “serious player” in the fast-growing battery-recycling market.
The homegrown Quebec company has operated a demonstration-scale recycling site since 2019, but will greatly expand its capacity to 20,000 tonnes of material per year — the equivalent of about 45,000 EV batteries — with the upsized plant in Saint-Bruno, just east of Montreal. It’s the first facility of its kind in Quebec, but will also serve customers elsewhere in Canada and the United States.
At the same time, competition in the recycling sector is heating up, Couture said, with several players “really intense” about locking in material deals. Among others, Nevada-based Redwood Materials and Toronto-based Li-Cycle Holdings Inc., have rapidly expanded across North America in recent years.
Production of black mass, meantime, is just an intermediary step in the company’s long-term goal of establishing a circular supply chain for lithium ion batteries.