NEU Battery Materials Secures $7.6 Mn to Expand LFP Battery Recycling

The news comes as NEU opens its recycling plant in Tuas, Singapore. The plant can handle 1,300 tonnes of battery materials each year.

Funding and Investors

The $7.6 million came from investors Lotus Singapore Group and M7 Holdings as well as returning investor Paragon Ventures I. NEU Battery Materials will use this capital to run the new plant improve its recycling tech and get ready to expand into other countries.

Bryan Oh, CEO and co-founder of NEU Battery Materials says the company plans to enter markets by 2027. Europe and the United States are choices. The company wants to build recycling plants near battery manufacturers in those regions.

How NEU Battery Materials Plans to Use the Funding

The company has three goals with the new money:

• Plant Operations: Run the Tuas facility test the recycling process and make production more efficient.
• Technology Development: Improve its lithium recovery method and create a design plan for larger plants.
• International Expansion: Get ready to build recycling plants in Europe and the United States working with battery makers.

Although the Tuas plant can process 1,300 tonnes a year NEU won’t run it at speed right away. Instead the company will use it to test and fine-tune its technology before scaling up.

NEUs Lithium Recovery Technology

NEU Battery Materials focuses on recycling lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries. These are common in vehicles. Unlike batteries LFP batteries don’t have valuable metals like nickel or cobalt so recycling them is harder to make money from.

NEU has created a process that uses electricity and water to recover lithium. It also reuses a chemical, which cuts down on costs. Most other methods use chemicals that get used up making them more expensive.

Commercial Plans and Growth Strategy

NEU plans to sell the lithium to battery manufacturers to use in new batteries. Now the company is sending samples to manufacturers to test the quality and consistency of its recycled material. It will send amounts as it gains confidence.

The Tuas plant will act as a lab to improve the recycling process and build a blueprint for plants. The current equipment can handle double the plant’s current capacity. If NEU wants to grow more it will need to add new equipment.

About NEU Battery Materials

NEU Battery Materials was founded in Singapore. It’s a company that recovers lithium from LFP batteries. It uses an electrochemical process to pull lithium from scrap materials and old batteries. The goal is to make LFP recycling more profitable.

The new 1,300-tonne-per-year plant, in Tuas is meant to help with technology development, product testing and preparing for growth abroad.

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