SK Ecoplant digs into China’s booming battery market

South Korean tech company SK Ecoplant and its battery recycling subsidiary Tes-Amm have secured an additional waste battery recycling base in China. This move is meant to ‘strengthen’ its position in the world’s largest market of electric vehicle batteries.

SK Ecoplant is building a new battery recycling facility in Yancheng City, Jiangsu Province. The new site, to be completed by the end of 2024, represents a pre-treatment facility for production scrap and post-consumer lithium-ion batteries with a total floor area of ​​8 000 meters.

Thanks to the pre-treatment process, it will be possible to physically and safely shred cathode and anode scrap to extract black mass. Tess-Amm is optimising its solutions to realise a ‘fully circular’ loop for next generation batteries.

The plant will be operated with the support of local player G-Cycle, a joint venture launched by Tess-Amm in 2019. ‘Together we will lead the waste battery recycling market,’ says SK Ecoplant ceo Lee Dae-hyeok.

China accounts for more than 60% of global electric car sales by 2022, according to data from the Korea Automobile Research Institute. Dae-hyeok points out there are about 10 production plants for electric vehicle battery manufacturers based in the Jiangsu region, including BYD.

Meanwhile, Tes-Amm has also recently signed a contract with Portugal’s largest energy company, Galp Energia, to set up a battery recycling hub in the Iberian Peninsula area. The Southern European facility will treat both production scrap and post-consumer batteries.