SK Ecoplant Completes Construction of Used Battery Recycling Plant in China

Completion of Preprocessing Plant for Waste Battery Recycling in China
Annual Production of 2000 Tons of Black Mass

SK ecoplant announced on the 13th that it held a completion ceremony for its battery recycling plant on the 12th at the Economic and Technological Development Zone in Yancheng City, Jiangsu Province, China.

Park Kyung-il, President of SK Ecoplant (sixth from the left), Terrance Ng, Chairman of TES (third from the left), and Tan Bing, Chairman of Z-Cycle (fourth from the left) are posing for a commemorative photo. (Provided by SK Ecoplant)

The event was attended by more than 80 people, including Park Kyung-il, President of SK ecoplant; Terrance Ng, Chairman of TES; Lee Cheol-soo, Head of SK ecoplant Nanjing Corporation; Tan Bing, Chairman of Z-Cycle; Zhu Bin (周斌), Secretary of the Communist Party Committee of Yancheng City; and Xue Shengtang (薛盛堂), Secretary-General of the Communist Party Committee of Yancheng City.

This project is being carried out in two phases through a collaboration between SK ecoplant Nanjing Corporation and Z-Cycle, a Chinese joint venture specializing in waste battery recycling. Z-Cycle was established in 2019 by TES and Zhong-Yi, a Chinese new energy business investment firm. It is one of 15 companies in China capable of waste battery reuse (sequential use) and recycling (regenerative use), and the first waste battery recycling operator approved in Shanghai. Currently, it operates both pre-processing and post-processing facilities for waste battery recycling.

The newly completed first-phase battery recycling pre-processing plant is located in the Economic and Technological Development Zone of Yancheng City, Jiangsu Province, China. It covers a total floor area of 8,000㎡ and can produce 2,000 tons of black mass annually. An additional second-phase pre-processing plant of the same scale is under construction nearby, and upon its completion by the end of 2024, the total annual black mass production capacity will reach 4,000 tons. Black mass is an intermediate processed material in the form of black powder, produced by collecting, discharging, dismantling, and crushing waste batteries. Through post-processing of black mass, rare metals such as lithium, cobalt, and nickel can be extracted.

Jiangsu Province is considered a key hub for the global electric vehicle battery industry. According to SNE Research in 2022, it is home to more than 10 electric vehicle battery manufacturing plants, including BYD, the world's second-largest electric vehicle battery manufacturer by market share. SK ecoplant plans to use this Jiangsu waste battery recycling plant as a strategic base to secure feedstock volumes such as waste batteries and scrap.

SK ecoplant intends to actively target the Chinese waste battery recycling market by linking the Yancheng plant with its existing Shanghai plant.

Park Kyung-il, President of SK ecoplant, said, "The Yancheng Battery Recycling Center was born from the combination of SK ecoplant’s innovative eco-friendly solutions and Z-Cycle’s unique waste battery recycling technology, and it will serve as an important milestone presenting sustainability for the global battery industry. We will accelerate our leadership in the global battery recycling market by strengthening our competitiveness through advanced technology and a global network."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.