Redwood Materials recently received a $2 billion conditional commitment from the U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE) to support the expansion of its McCarran site in Nevada.
Redwood Materials plans to establish a recycling production facility on the site, located approximately 24 miles east of Sparks, NV, in the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center. The recycling production facility will reprocess lithium-ion battery materials and scrap copper wire into metal commodities.
Once completed, the McCarran site might be instrumental to the U.S. EV battery supply chain. It would be the first domestic facility to provide recycling for end-of-life batteries and production scrap. The facility would also support the production of anode copper foil and cathode materials in a fully closed loop.
The DOE’s $2 billion loan is a step towards the Biden Administration’s goal to ramp up electric vehicle production in the U.S. The administration wants zero-emission vehicles to make up 50% of all new cars sold in the domestic market by 2030.
Redwood Materials would also help achieve the administration’s goal through its anode copper foil and cathode active material output---both essential to lithium-ion battery production. The company is expected to produce enough anode copper foil and cathode active material to support 1 million EV production annually.
Redwood Materials plans to use new and recycled materials made of lithium, nickel and cobalt to produce 36,000 metric tons of ultra-thin battery-grade copper foil and 100,000 metric tons of active cathode materials per year. The company already has a deal with Panasonic to recycle Tesla Giga Nevada’s scrap.
Tesla announced plans to expand Giga Nevada recently, increasing battery production lines at the site, specifically for 4680 battery cells, meaning Redwood Materials may have much more scrap to recycle from Tesla Giga Nevada in the next few years. It also inked deals with a few other car companies and Amazon to recycle lithium-ion batteries and other e-waste materials.
Abby Andrews