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Battery recycler nets $375M from U.S. government

Megan Hernbroth
Illustration of a battery icon with hundred dollar bills as the bars indicating that it's full.

Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios

Li-Cycle, a battery recycling company, secured $375 million in conditional loans from the Department of Energy's Loan Programs Office.

Why it matters: Recycling lithium-ion batteries helps U.S. companies avoid materials shortages around the globe while lessening the environmental impact of EV batteries.

Details: The loan will finance Li-Cycle's construction of a recycling and material recovery facility near Rochester, New York.

  • The company extracts materials from end-of-life lithium-ion batteries that can then be used in new EV construction.
  • Source materials will come to the Rochester facility from Li-Cycle's three current operational sites in North America: Gilbert, Arizona; Tuscaloosa, Alabama; Kingston, Ontario.
  • LG provides batteries to be recycled and also uses Li-Cycle's recycled materials in new battery production as part of a larger partnership agreement.

Context: The DOE's LPO has roughly $412 billion available to lend, and has helped finance everything from new battery manufacturing to solar and wind projects.

  • Li-Cycle's loan is through its Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program, which focuses specifically on bringing manufacturing for EV materials stateside.

The bottom line: It'll still be a while until Li-Cycle can appreciate the full scope of the investment's impacts as it needs to meet a set of conditions to access the full $375 million.

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