E-waste recycling firm Attero Recycling plans to invest USD 1 billion, about Rs 7,700 crore, to expand its lithium ion recycling capacity across the globe to 3 lakh metric tonnes per annum by 2027, a top official of the company said Tuesday.
Attero Recycling CEO and co-founder Nitin Gupta said that the company at present recycles lithium ion in India only but with fresh investment the company will expand recycling capacity globally to 1.5 lakh MT by 2025 in phase 1 with investment of USD 500 million and then to 3 lakh MT by 2027 with additional investment of USD 500 million.
“There is an increased focus on electric vehicles, which has resulted in an increased demand for lithium-ion battery recycling. By 2030, 2.5 million tonnes of lithium-ion batteries will have reached end-of-life. With a stronghold in the Indian market, we plan to set up operations and mega recycling facilities in Poland (Europe), Ohio (USA) and Indonesia, with an investment of USD 1 billion,” Gupta said. According to the plan shared by Attero, the European facility will be functional by the fourth quarter of 2022, the USA facility will be up and running by the third quarter of 2023 and the Indonesian factory by the first quarter of 2024.
“This capacity expansion will enable Attero to become a global leader in fulfilling green metal demand and meet over 15 per cent of the world’s demand for cobalt, lithium, graphite, nickel, amongst others. By doing this we will be saving annual carbon credit in the range of half a million tonners. Meanwhile, Attero will continue to ramp up its India operations,” Gupta said. Attero at present recycles 3,500 MT of Li-ion waste in India and is expanding the capacity to 11,000 MT by October 2022. The company has plans to scale up capacity in India to 50,000 MT by 2027.
“Through our NASA-recognised technology developed in India and patented globally, we can effectively recycle the materials in a sustainable manner and extract pure metals that can be ploughed back into the economy. We have maintained the highest purity (battery grade) and recovery efficiency (98 per cent) across various battery materials including cobalt, graphite, lithium, nickel, manganese while maintaining lowest capex and opex in the world in this space,” Gupta said. For our international expansion, Attero will be collaborating with partners who can support it in establishing facilities in the US, Europe and Indonesia markets.
