American Manganese Secures Patent in India for Li-ion Battery Recycling

The Indian Patent Office has issued Patent No. 380826 for the American Manganese’s first patent invention regarding lithium-ion battery recycling, the company announced in a recent statement.

The patent covers core process functions in the company’s RecycLiCo process that can achieve up to 100% leach extraction of lithium, cobalt, nickel, and manganese from the treatment of lithium-ion battery cathode chemistries used in electric vehicles and portable electronics. These cathode chemistries include lithium-cobalt oxide (LCO), lithium-nickel-manganese-cobalt oxide (NMC), and lithium-nickel-cobalt-aluminum oxide (NCA). The newly granted Indian patent is separate from American Manganese’s second battery recycling patent invention recently filed into national phase for Europe, South Korea, Canada, India, Australia, Japan, and China.

India’s automotive industry is the fifth largest in the world and is slated to be the third largest by 2030, coupled with India’s plans to have 30% of private cars, 70% of commercial vehicles, 40% of buses, and 80% of two and three-wheelers go electric by 2030. India could offer one of the world’s largest emerging electric vehicle markets and pose a significant opportunity to establish a circular battery recycling business model for the sustainable and domestic supply of critical battery materials, said American Manganese.

The company is a critical metals company focused on recycling and upcycling lithium-ion battery waste into high-value battery cathode materials, using its closed-loop RecycLiCo™ process. With minimal processing steps and over 99% extraction of lithium, cobalt, nickel, and manganese, the upcycling process is said to create valuable lithium-ion battery materials for direct integration into the re-manufacturing of new lithium-ion batteries.

Bloomberg is projecting 56 million passenger electric vehicles sales worldwide in 2040, and the need to recycle the trailing volume of end-of-life batteries will be a certainty. Therefore, black mass is expected to be the most common input material for hydrometallurgical processing, and significant demand for advanced and efficient processing of black mass material will be required. The RecycLiCo™ process presents a significant opportunity to reintroduce these critical battery materials back into the supply chain, says American Manganese.