Princeton NuEnergy

Princeton NuEnergy (PNE) offers battery recycling solutions using its patented technology process called low-temperature plasma-assisted separation (LPAS). Its technology sorts, purifies, and regenerates cathode materials from used lithium-ion batteries. This direct recycling process can recover up to 95% of all constituent materials in lithium-ion batteries. The company claims that its production process uses 73% less energy and 68% less greenhouse gas emissions than the conventional cathode production process. In addition, the company aims to achieve 48% lower cost compared to virgin production of cathode materials.

Key customers and partnerships

The company, spun out from Princeton University in 2019, initiated commercialization efforts in March 2022 through a partnership with electric industrial vehicle manufacturer Greenland Technologies Holding to develop recycling solutions for end-of-life lithium-ion batteries used in the latter’s vehicles. In October 2022, Princeton NuEnergy along with Winstron Greentech, a subsidiary of Taiwan-based Winstron Corporation, opened the pilot lithium-ion battery (LIB) recycling production line in McKinney, Texas. The pilot plant can process up to 500 tons of LIBs per year and will use PNE’s proprietary low-temperature plasma-assisted separation (LPAS) recycling technology to process LIBs from consumer electronics and electric vehicle (EV) battery packs. 

Princeton is also working with leading scientists from Argonne National Lab, National Renewable Energy Lab, Oak Ridge National Lab, and the University of California Irvine, to advance and enhance the efficiency of its LPA. 

Funding and financials

PNE secured USD 16 million in a Series A funding round in November 2023 to be used to establish a new facility and bolster the company’s processing capacity. Earlier in September 2023, the company was awarded a USD 4.4 million grant from the US Department of Energy (DOE) and the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) to advance Cathode-Active Materials (CAMs) manufacturing.