Recycled lithium from used batteries creates up to 86% less emissions than mining

Ascend Elements plans to produce up to 3,000 metric tons of sustainable, domestic lithium carbonate per year at its facility in Covington, Georgia, in 2025. The company plans to begin producing 99 percent pure, sustainable lithium carbonate recovered from used lithium-ion batteries at the facility. Currently, recycled lithium carbonate is not produced at a commercial scale anywhere in the United States. The only other domestic source of lithium carbonate is from a mining operation in Nevada.

"This is the first new, domestic source of lithium carbonate in the 21st Century," says Eric Gratz, co-founder and CTO of Ascend Elements, which is a vertically integrated battery materials company. "This new domestic supply of a critical battery material will help U.S. industries meet growing demand while avoiding the possibility of tariffs on imported materials." 

Lithium extraction with low carbon emissions

Lithium carbonate is used to make advanced batteries for grid-scale energy storage applications as well as electric vehicles, boats and aircraft. According to Gratz, Ascend Elements' used battery lithium recovery process produces a low level of carbon dioxide emissions compared to conventional methods like mining and brine extraction.

Ascend Elements' lithium extraction process produces just 2.27 kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions per one kilogram of lithium carbonate produced. By comparison, spodumene mining produces approximately 16.7 kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions per 1 kilogram of lithium carbonate and Chilean brine extraction produces approximately 3.6 kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions per one kilogram of lithium carbonate. These preliminary comparisons are from a life cycle assessment (LCA) not yet critically reviewed.

"To put this in perspective, our current process of lithium extraction from used lithium-ion batteries is about 86 percent less carbon-intensive compared to spodumene mining and 37 percent less carbon-intensive compared to Chilean brine extraction," Gratz says.

The Ascend Elements facility in Covington is one of North America's largest lithium-ion battery recycling facilities. In operation since August 2022, the plant has the capacity to recycle up to 30,000 metric tons of lithium-ion battery materials per year, or approximately 70,000 EV battery packs annually.