When it comes to making batteries for electric vehicles (EVs), experts say China has as much as a 15-year head start on the rest of the world. Beijing’s stranglehold over the mining and refining of the rare earth materials used in this technology is an increasing concern for U.S. officials and it is partly why the Biden administration pledged $62 million toward EV battery recycling initiatives.
One company driving these efforts forward is ReElement Technologies, which has developed a recycling process likened to a water softening system that can extract rare earth elements at a purity upwards of 99%. This approach involves densely packing columns with a binding resin to extract desired materials from used batteries, offering a cost-effective alternative to sourcing materials from China.
“The process is really remarkable in that it’s able to both recover in excess have 95% of the input, and also the purity,” David Sauve, chief marketing officer at ReElement, said. “So you have the recovery, the yield, and then the purity, the purity exceeds 99.99%. It can also be tremendously expensive to produce the material, but we stand out amongst others, because the actual salable material on the back end competes with China’s prices, even if it’s being perhaps manipulated at the state level.”
The Biden administration’s efforts to mitigate U.S. dependency on China for EV resources extend beyond investments in recycling initiatives. Tax credits have been introduced to incentivize domestic sourcing, as they come with requirements to ensure that a significant portion of an EV’s components are sourced from North America in order for the vehicle to qualify for federal assistance.
“We kind of hold the secret sauce to access those tax credits and the automakers are starting to wake up to that fact as well,” Sauve said. “We have actually been told behind the scenes that one of our commercial facilities is coming online this year. I think it will be one of two in the world that will be able to meet those standards and those requirements for the tax credit.”
Qualifying for these tax credits not only reduces the upfront cost of EVs but also makes them more affordable to operate in the long run. After about five to six years, an EV will eventually become less expensive to continue owning than a gas car due to the price difference between fuel and electricity. However, a non-tax-credit-eligible electric vehicle may not see those consumer savings until a whole decade later.
The implications of ReElement’s recycling technology extend beyond the automotive industry, with materials extracted from EV batteries also finding applications in various sectors, including renewable energy, consumer electronics and defense. This versatility positions the company’s technology as a sustainable solution to meet the growing demand for critical materials.
“The fact that we’re able to process both the battery elements, the battery minerals, and the rare earth elements, allows us to maybe outlive if EVs turn out to be more of a trend of the 2020s, then we’re able to kind of stand beyond that trend,” Suave said.