November 24, 2025: Ace Green Recycling has appointed former Gopher Resource executive Rick Stollsteimer as senior VP of operations, to lead development of the firm’s Texas facility and its expansion of operations in North America.

Stollsteimer was formerly VP of operations at Gopher, where he oversaw a round-the-clock smelting facility producing around 160,000 tonnes of finished product annually.

Ace announced on November 18 that Stollsteimer will oversee operational readiness and scale-up of its Texas facility, where the firm will deploy its GreenLead and LFP recycling technologies.

The site is expected to start using Ace’s lead acid recycling system in 2026, followed by its LFP-focused lithium ion system in 2027.

Ace claims its GreenLead technology replaces the smelting furnace, operates at room temperature, runs on electricity and has zero Scope 1 greenhouse gas emissions (direct GHG emissions such as those made while running boilers and vehicles) and reduces solid waste by more than 85%.

Stollsteimer said: “I’ve experienced both the constraints and the challenges of traditional smelting. Ace’s proprietary technology eliminates the need for high-temperature furnaces altogether — offering a smarter, safer, and more sustainable model for how battery recycling should operate at scale.”

Ace unveiled plans for its Texas operations in 2022, saying then that the 400,000 square foot (about 37,000m²) facility was expected to start the first phase of operations in the third quarter of 2023.

Last August, Ace said it would use a new grid metallics processing system to support antimony recovery and boost sustainability in lead battery recycling.

The firm claimed its proprietary GMPS system would allow recyclers to recover clean alloy metal directly from their battery-breaking systems, “bypassing the need for a smelting furnace”.