E-Waste Management

Mitigating climate change and resource exploitation

Renewable Materials

Critical supply chain resilience and sustainability

Circular Sustainability

Reducing, reusing, repurposing and recycling end-of-life batteries

Renew Materials Pty Ltd

We develop technologies for recycling ternary lithium and alkaline batteries

Our focus is on recovering more than 90% of rare earth metals, including lithium, cobalt and nickel from discarded ternary lithium batteries.

Challenges in eco-friendly battery recycling

The ubiquitous and expanding applications for lithium and alkaline battery technologies are poised to exert pressure on recycling commitments and drive the evolution of technology and infrastructure needed for recycling batteries. In Australia, only 2–3% of lithium batteries are collected and sent offshore for recycling.

Most of the batteries that do get recycled undergo a high-temperature smelting process which is energy intensive. These recycling plants require high capital investment and sophisticated equipment to treat harmful emissions generated by the smelting process. Despite the high costs, these plants don’t recover all valuable battery materials.

The predicted demand for critical metals required to produce lithium and alkaline batteries combined with the current process of landfill disposal, raise environmental and financial concerns where waste batteries with concentrated valuable elements are disposed without effective materials recovery. Renew Materials is developing efficient recycling and resource recovery technologies to enhance Australia’s energy and resource security.