Q&A: Battery recycling gets competitive: Clarification

Clarifies temporary facility's processing capacity under first question

Singapore-based lithium-ion battery recycling firm EcoNiLi Battery will launch a 24,000 t/yr battery recycling plant in Malaysia's Perak state in May. Argus spoke to Jayden Goh, chief executive officer and founder of EcoNiLi, about upcoming developments and the battery recycling industry. Edited highlights follow:

Could you share more about the plant?

We are relying on domestic used battery supply and some domestic firms that have imported battery scraps, including in shredded form, from regions such as Europe and even the US, which we are collecting and buying for processing. But we are bringing the issue up to the federal level and want the creation of a policy that will allow us to import used batteries from all regions. We are also in negotiation with the trade ministry to obtain a green channel to directly import used battery scraps, which is currently not allowed.

We currently have a temporary facility that processes 3,000 t/yr of used batteries to produce black mass. We are going to produce industrial-grade lithium carbonate and have stopped producing mixed hydroxide precipitate (MHP). We are looking at producing cobalt, nickel electrolytes for phase two and plan to begin construction by next year.

We [have] exported our black mass mainly to Hong Kong customers, who will take them back to China, as well as South Korea. But we will be exporting to Chinese customers on an offtake basis, [for] which we have four buying contracts.

Battery treatment costs for black mass in Singapore are [at] about 5,800 yuan/t, but it is about Yn1,500/t in Malaysia. As I see it, if we want to be competitive in the region, we would need to be competitive in terms of production costs, capital expenditure and scale.

What are your thoughts on the lithium market volatility and how does that factor into the company's strategy?

I think lithium is a very risky business. The market is not driven by supply and demand but by expectations and assumptions. Therefore, whenever we handle large quantities of lithium materials, we prefer to do it in the form of offtake. Whatever we produce we would like to ship it out immediately. We do not want to be a gambler.

The market has not been performing too well in the first two months this year, but [the] price is slowly rising in March.

We extract lithium and make MHP at a treatment fee of around less than $1,000/t of black mass for black mass producers, who will sell them themselves.

What is your view on the battery recycling industry in Asia?

I think only a few big players will remain [in Malaysia] in the next 3-5 years. But whether they will be [granted] license[s], that's another story. We obtained the fastest environmental impact assessment approval in Malaysia's record in just three weeks. I think we will also be the first to obtain the permission to directly import used batteries, in four to five months' time, which will put us in a better position.

It is also getting competitive elsewhere in the region. We were the first black mass producing factory in Indonesia back in 2019 and only managed to collect 150t of used batteries per month as imports are not allowed. Several black mass factories have also failed over there as they did not manage to collect sufficient quantities. The Indian government is also quite supportive because circular economy creates indirect jobs. But domestic collection is currently unsustainable in India.

We are seeing rapid breakthroughs in battery technologies such as sodium-ion batteries. How would that affect the lithium-ion battery market?

The situation is similar to hydrogen vehicles. Just look at how long it took to promote and get the market to believe in the technology. Sodium-ion batteries are still in their infancy phase. Maybe we do need to process sodium-ion batteries 10 years later. But now it's too early for that.

By Joseph Ho