The global battery recycling industry is still in its infancy. The battery recycling company was founded by former Tesla CTO JB Straubel. It has established an extensive cooperation network and currently recycles about 6 GWh of lithium in its Nevada factory every year. Ion batteries (batteries come from consumer electronics ) , Redwood also recycles materials from Panasonic from defective batteries at Tesla's Nevada factory. From the current point of view, Redwood not only covers Ford, Volvo , Toyota and Volkswagen Group America (including Audi) , this company has an extremely strong imagination.
▲ Figure 1. Redwood Materials partnership
The current recycling channels in the United States are to collect scrapped batteries and materials through the dealer network of automobile companies, package the scrapped batteries and send them to the factory in Redwood, Nevada for recycling.
▲ Figure 2. U.S. electric vehicle ownership
Investment and Outlook
I actually think Redwood Materials is a bit suspicious (I don’t believe it has anything to do with Elon Musk) , the development curve of this company is The United States knows the most about batteries and Smart capital collaboration.
Redwood Materials was founded in 2017 and is headquartered in Nevada. JB Straubel left Tesla in 2019 to focus on the operations of Redwood Materials.
And this financing history is as follows:
▲ Figure 3. Redwood Materials financing history
◎ completed a $2 million seed round of financing in 2017.
◎ In 2020, Redwood Materials completed a first round of financing totaling US$40 million, with investors including Capricorn Investment Group and Breakthrough Energy Ventures.
◎ In 2020, Redwood Materials conducted a second round of financing, totaling US$200 million, with investors from Amazon, Capricorn, and Breakthrough Energy Ventures.
◎ In July 2021, Redwood Materials announced the completion of a US$700 million Series C financing. Investors included T. Rowe Price, Baillie Gifford and Fidelity, with a valuation of US$3.7 billion.
◎ In 2021, Ford invested US$50 million.
On the whole, this company currently recycles 6GWh of recycling manufacturers, and has achieved a layout in the United States, a place where electric vehicles have been developed early but have not been implemented. That said, most current consumer electronics recycling, from , Amazon, and Panasonic, works by breaking down consumer electronics waste into powder form, processing it through chemicals, and then returning it to the supply chain as raw material.
▲ Figure 4. Battery materials in the United States
In August 2021, Redwood tripled the size of its 150,000-square-foot recycling facility in Carson City, Nevada, and purchased 100 units near Tesla and Panasonic’s Gigafactory in Sparks, Nevada. Acres of land, shared operations. In September 2021, a multi-year agreement was signed with South Korea's L&F (battery materials manufacturer) to use the design and manufacturing technology provided by it to manufacture battery cathodes in a new factory.
▲ Figure 5. L&F provides technology to Redwood (reuse of recycled materials)
From a general logic point of view, Redwood wanted to make cathode materials from the beginning, and use the lithium battery waste accumulated in the United States as a resource through recycling in 2025. To meet the demand for producing 100GWh of materials, as electric vehicles in the United States gradually increase in volume, vehicle output will be increased to 500GWh by 2030 by increasing production capacity. In other words, the United States is thinking of using power batteries and consumer battery materials as The beginning of sustainable use is to establish a complete cycle system.
▲ Figure 6. Redwood’s goal
The subsequent cooperation between General Motors, LG Energy and Li-Cycle is essentially the same logic, taking back the lithium batteries inherent in the United States as part of the power battery materials.
▲ Figure 7. Li-Cycle’s reference path
Judging from the current recycling methods, there is a consensus that some efficiencies are improving, and the next generation of battery material factories is indeed moving in the direction of large-scale chemical industry.
▲ Figure 8. Recycling method
If you want to deal with black powder after getting it, here is a higher efficiency.
▲ Figure 9. The treatment of black powder
Part 2
Discussion and thinking
I think Europe and the United States currently think more when building their own battery industries. From the very beginning they started out building the logic of a big business.
● There are relatively few companies that can make power batteries, and they purchase equipment from China, Japan and South Korea.
● has built a complete recycling network and rules from the beginning, and established the proportion of renewable materials used. From 2030, power batteries may need to use 10-15% recycled materials.
● builds a resource library of battery materials overseas, in South America, Southeast Asia, Australia and Africa.
We can say that, in fact, from the current point of view, the entire battery production and material processing have become homogeneous, which means that there may be a certain latecomer advantage. I buy more efficient equipment, recruit battery scientists, battery design and process engineers from all over the world, and then gradually increase the volume. From the perspective of technical paths, there are also two paths in Europe and the United States:
● Lithium iron phosphate : is different from our domestic considerations. Due to the recycling situation, the comprehensive cost of lithium iron may not be lower than that of high nickel.
● high nickel: mainly relies on the existing battery waste to support part of it and will form a recycling system in the future.
Judging from the current data in China, a lot of recycling has been done, but there are many players and everyone can collect it. It has been a scattered situation from the beginning.
html In 36 months, a total of 17,032 tons of waste ternary yuan was recycled, 8,316 tons of waste lithium iron phosphate was recycled, and 43,684 tons of waste lithium cobalt oxide was recycled. html A total of 3,001 gold tons of nickel, 4,093 gold tons of cobalt and 1,077 gold tons of lithium were recovered in June.
html A total of 2,800 tons of industrial grade lithium carbonate, 1,997 tons of battery grade lithium carbonate and 1,185 tons of crude lithium carbonate were recovered in 36 months.
▲ Figure 10. China’s current battery recycling status
Summary: In the long run, recycling occupies a very important link in battery materials and production. The development of this power battery is actually sustainable, which is how to build a controllable domestic battery recycling system. An efficient system is worth thinking about.
