Redwood Materials Announces Battery Recycling Partnership with GM's Ultium Cells

Redwood Materials has announced a partnership with Ultium Cells LLC - the joint battery cell manufacturing venture between General Motors and LG Energy Solution - to recycle production scrap from both their Warren, Ohio and Spring Hill, Tennessee facilities.

Materials to be recycled include cathode and anode material as well as cell scrap.

Ultium Cells’ two US facilities are each 2.8 million-square-feet operations that expect to produce more than 80 GWh combined of battery cells annually.

Redwood will receive the majority of the scrap from its manufacturing process.

Ultium is already shipping material from Gigafactories in Ohio and Tennessee and the company has a third facility under construction in Michigan.

With this latest collaboration, Redwood now has contracts with most of North America’s battery cell manufacturers.

Compared to traditional methods of processing mined ore into battery-grade materials, Redwood's approach is more sustainable.

It uses 80% less energy, generates 70% less CO2 emissions, and requires 80% less water, setting new standards in resource efficiency.

In a press release, Redwood states: 'Our hydrometallurgy facility, the first commercial-scale nickel "mine" to open in the United States in a decade, not only recycles battery manufacturing scrap into raw nickel and cobalt but also stands as the only commercial-scale source of lithium supply to come online in the U.S. in decades. Unlike traditional mining projects that often take over a decade to become operational, we built and activated our facility in less than a quarter of the time'.

Redwood's process involves sourcing end-of-life batteries and production scrap as well as raw materials and then recycling, refining, and remanufacturing these feedstocks into critical battery materials for North American cell manufacturers at gigafactory-scale.