VinES, Li-Cycle strike long-term battery recycling deal

Li-Cycle, the largest lithium-ion battery recycler in North America, said Wednesday it has signed a definitive agreement with Vietnam’s VinES Energy Solutions for a long-term battery recycling relationship.

Under the deal, the Canadian major will become VinES’s strategic and preferred recycling partner in 2024 for the latter’s Vietnamese-sourced battery materials.

Li-Cycle's Spoke and Hub technologies use a combination of mechanical safe size reduction and hydrometallurgical resource recovery for lithium-ion battery recycling. Its Spoke facilities produce black mass, consisting of valuable critical metals including lithium, cobalt, and nickel.

Li-Cycle said in a release from Canada that the new agreement further contemplates the possible construction of a dedicated Spoke located close to VinES’s manufacturing site.

“Further, the potential Spoke has the opportunity to benefit from the growing local demand for lithium-ion battery recycling solutions, driven by strong economic growth and an increasing manufacturing presence in Vietnam.”

The heavyweight added, “An investment decision regarding the dedicated Spoke facility is expected to be made in 2025. In the meantime, Li-Cycle will facilitate the processing of VinES’ material utilizing Li-Cycle’s North American Spoke network.”

Tim Johnston, co-founder and executive chair of Li-Cycle, said: “This agreement supports our shared goals of creating a sustainable and closed-loop battery supply chain.”

Pham Thuy Linh, CEO of VinES, echoed: “By recycling battery production scrap and used batteries into the global mobility and energy storage industries, we can achieve a sustainable supply chain while reducing environmental impacts.”

To build on their partnership first announced in October 2022, VinES and Li-Cycle will also continue to explore global recycling solutions for VinFast, Vietnam's first electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer.

Both VinES and VinFast are part of Vingroup, the largest private conglomerate in Vietnam.

VinFast has expanded its business to the North American and European markets. VinES specializes in the research, development, and manufacturing of advanced batteries for mobility and energy storage applications. VinES has recently commissioned a lithium-ion battery cell manufacturing facility in Hai Phong, northern Vietnam, and expects to further expand its production capacity in the country.

Hai Phong city is also home to VinFast’s Vietnamese manufacturing complex. The EV maker has plans to build a manufacturing site in the U.S. state of North Carolina with an initial investment of $2 billion. It expects to launch the plant in 2025.

Li-Cycle opened an office in Singapore in December 2022 to support its connectivity to the Asian market and its efforts to continue building and expanding its commercial relationships with Asia-based manufacturers.

“Our office in Singapore represents an important connection point to Asia,” said Dawei Li, Li-Cycle regional president in Asia-Pacific. “We look forward to supporting VinES’s recycling needs and strengthening our commercial relationships in this important market.”