Ascend Elements

Ascend Elements (previously known as Battery Resourcers) takes old cathode material and processes them to create new cathode materials, to meet the needs of cell manufacturing. Ascend Elements also recycles spent lithium-ion batteries into value-added battery-ready cathode active materials. 

The company reports that its technology which involves the hydro process recycling and direct recycling technologies allow in 97% metal recovery and production of Nickel Manganese Cobalt (NMC)-based cathode active materials at a 35% reduction in cost, 32% reduction in emissions, and 13% reduction in energy consumption, compared to the production of virgin cathodes. The company also claims that it can recycle and produce cathode materials at 50% of the cost of newly mined metals. As of March 2024, the company manufactures its products in North America and Europe, and it targets battery producers and vehicle equipment manufacturers, having partnered with players such as Honda, Jaguar Land Rover, SK Battery America (SKBA), and EcoPro Group. 

In March 2023, Ascend Elements commenced operations at its 154,000 square-foot lithium-ion battery recycling facility in Covington, Georgia. The facility can process 30,000 metric tons of end-of-life batteries and battery scrap per year(~70,000 vehicle batteries per year), and has reportedly become North America’s largest lithium-ion battery recycling facility. As of March 2024, the company was building a USD 1 billion lithium-ion battery recycling facility in Kentucky, expected to come online by 2025 and produce battery materials for up to 750,000 EVs per year. It also set a long-term target to build new facilities across North America, Europe, and Asia to process up to 150,000 metric tons of lithium-ion batteries annually.

Key customers and partnerships

The company partnered with Koura, a global leader in the development, manufacture, and supply of fluoroproducts, in March 2023, to supply Koura with up to 5,000 metric tonnes of recycled and recovered lithium carbonate per year. In October 2023, they advanced the partnership to jointly commercialize the patented graphite recycling technology in the US. In August 2023, the company partnered with Call2Recycle to safely manage end-of-life EV batteries using Call2Recycle's GreenTraxEV platform. In September 2023, the company partnered with Freudenberg e-Power Systems to develop a sustainable cathode-active material (CAM). During the same period, the company formed a joint venture with SK Ecoplant to build a battery recycling pretreatment plant in Kentucky which will be able to produce 12,000 tons of black mass from January 2025. 

Funding and financials

In February 2024, Ascend Elements raised USD 162 million in a Series D round to support the construction of Apex 1. Previously, in September 2023, when the company raised USD 542 million in a Series D funding round led by Decarbonization Partners, Temasek, and Qatar Investment Authority. The funds were to be used for construction of Apex 1.