December 15, 2022: ACE Green Recycling is teaming up with Tabono Investments to build and operate battery recycling facilities for lead and lithium ion batteries in South Africa, the firms announced on December 13.
The partners have signed the term sheet to form a joint venture to build and operate two plants on greenfield sites that will separately process and recycle lead and lithium ion batteries using ACE’s technology, which it claims operates without fossil fuel-based heating.
Under the partnership, ACE will have a 51% ownership of the joint venture to Tabono’s 49%.
Tabono co-founder Reon Barnard said the business aimed to help South Africa retain valuable battery materials such as lithium and cobalt, which might otherwise be lost without recycling.
ACE’s vice-president for global strategy and business development Farid Ahmed (pictured) said in July that the company was on track to produce refined lead in the US towards the end of 2023.
Some industry commentators say that the hydrometallurgical process for battery recycling is fraught with potential commercial and technical difficulties, making such projects unfeasible (see Batteries International issue No.121).
However, Ahmed said ACE expects production to start at the plant it is building in Texas around the fourth quarter of 2023.