The Bulletin Board – R3 Lithium

Black mass to lithium, on one site

R3 Lithium

R3 Lithium has begun operations at a Georgia plant that turns recycled battery material into lithium carbonate, without new mining.

R3 Lithium has started operations at a facility in Covington, Georgia, that recovers lithium from batteries already in circulation and refines it into lithium carbonate, all on a single site.

The approach is unusual. Most recyclers split black mass shredding and refining across different plants, and often different countries. R3’s site does both in one place, producing battery-grade lithium without new mining or foreign refining. The company acquired a plant built for around $150 million, and has set out a plan to roll out modular 5,000-tonne-a-year units across North America and Europe, each backed by an offtake agreement before it is built.

It is exactly the kind of domestic, closed-loop capacity the United States has been trying to build, keeping critical materials at home rather than shipping them abroad to be refined and shipped back.

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