NAA Member News: Cengiz Holding steps up international cooperation for electric vehicle batteries
ICoNiChem, the UK-based cobalt and nickel end products manufacturing plant of Cengiz Holding, one of Türkiye’s largest industrial enterprises, has teamed up with Canadian battery materials and technology company NOVONIX to develop nickel-based cathode active materials.
The project to be funded under the Canada-UK 2024 Critical Minerals Program involves nickel, cobalt and lithium recovery from black mass recovered from Li-Ion batteries to produce new batteries from recycled metals.
Cengiz Holding, Türkiye’s shining star with significant industrial investments both at home and across the globe, continues to step up its international cooperation on innovation. ICoNiChem, Cengiz Holding’s cobalt and nickel end products manufacturing plant based in Widnes, England, has teamed up with Canadian battery materials and technology manufacturing company NOVONIX to produce cathode active materials for electric vehicle batteries.
In the 2-year project funded under the Canada-UK 2024 Critical Minerals Program, ICoNiChem will recover nickel, cobalt and lithium from black mass from end-of-life EV batteries and production scrap from EV battery production, while NOVONIX will synthesize the metals and produce cathode active material, with ICoNiChem being awarded £160,000 of funding from the Faraday Institute, the UK Government funded research organisation for the development of all aspects of battery technologies.
250 TONS OF BLACK MASS PROCESSED ANNUALLY
Providing insight into the details of the project, ICoNiChem Managing Director Berk Şengül noted that this cooperation signifies a huge step towards zero waste and a strengthened critical materials supply chain and said, “Being one of the world’s leading companies in cobalt and nickel salts production, we already recover an average of 25 tons of nickel and cobalt by processing 250 tons of black mass every year to develop a greater understanding of the challenges involved. In this project, we will recover commercially critical raw materials and recycle them into batteries with the addition of lithium that we recover in our laboratories. NOVONIX will synthesize the purified metal salts and process them into cathode active material. The decision on whether to advance the project into commercial production will be made after electrification tests, which will mark a historic step in the recycling of end-of-life batteries and make ICoNiChem one of the first facilities in Europe to recover lithium.”
‘LOW CARBON FOOTPRINT FOR ELECTRIC VEHICLES’
Pointing out that the project is crucial to further reducing the carbon footprint of electric vehicles, Şengül continued: “While the electric vehicle market is ever-growing all over the world, the future of end-of-life batteries remains a hot topic on the global agenda. To minimize the carbon footprint of these batteries, it is essential to recycle them locally. As a company based in the UK, a country that has a significant and growing electric vehicle market, we aim to further reduce the carbon footprint of electric vehicles in line with their purpose and make them much more sustainable by supporting the battery recycling ecosystem. We are very excited about this project, which we believe will make a great contribution to the UK green economy.”
