The company recent acquisition of lithium battery recycler Promesa was a strategic move to enhance the firm’s lithium battery recycling capability with the ability to offer all three steps in the recycling process, Herring said.
The company’s second recent acquisition was that of Emrol, a distributor of several different battery chemistries, which was made to expand Ecobat’s presence in the Benelux region and into more battery applications.
“The way we present ourselves to the external world with our new web presence, the way we structure the company, the way we are now supporting a matrix organization within the company to drive the growth of the company, all of those things are meant to serve one purpose — that is for the world to take notice that we are Ecobat and we are going to continue to be the world’s largest recycler of batteries,” Herring said.
“Whether it’s lithium or other types of battery chemistry — that transition will continue and that’s why where today I can say we’re the largest lead recycler, I want to be the world’s battery recycler, irrespective of chemistry.”
Ecobat already has a lithium recycling facility in Darlaston, England, which already serves as a collection, discharge and disassembly hub. From there, batteries that cannot be used in second-life applications are shipped to Promesa, in Germany, where they are shredded to extract the black mass that contains the necessary metals for recycling.
Ecobat’s plan is to build a shredding capability at Darlaston and a collection, discharge and disassembly line at Promesa so that both sites can do the entire three-step process — the collection; discharge and disassembly; and shredding.
Herring says Ecobat will be the only lithium battery recycler that can offer all three steps rather than rely on partners for one or two of them.
Where lead battery recycling is concerned, Herring sees a slowdown as countries shift towards EVs, but does not believe it will cause the end of lead battery industry.
“Right now there’s a shift towards EVs and traction batteries are lithium batteries, but we can’t forget that every EV has one to three lead acid batteries,” he said.
“So the need will continue to grow although at a smaller rate over the next 10 years. We anticipate that growth rate to be around 2.5% a year, which pales into comparison to the 30+% anticipated in lithium batteries.
“However, it will be interesting to see how the general population of EV consumers will react over the next few years.
“The first generation of EV vehicles has a 10-year lifespan that we haven’t reached yet. Under the initial warranty the owner doesn’t care about costs but there will be a shock when the average consumer realizes to replace the battery of the car they’ve had for 10 years will cost them $2,600 just for labour to take it out. Then there’s a new battery, say, $6,000 and then one to two thousand to dispose of the previous one.
“How much news that generates will be interesting. Will people really want to spend that much money putting a new battery in an EV that’s already 10 years old? People are really excited about EVs but have they really thought it through?”
Read the full interview with Jimmy Herring in the next issue of Batteries International.
