We have battery recycling technology that extracts environment-friendly and high-purity lithium. “As the global waste battery recycling market is growing significantly, we are pursuing plans to enter the U.S. and Europe.”
Park Jae-ho, CEO of JaeYoungTech., LTD, recently met with the Seoul Economic Daily at COEX in Gangnam-gu, Seoul and said, “The new Gumi plant began operation at the end of last year and is starting mass production of secondary battery raw materials.”
JYTech is a small but strong company specializing in battery recycling that was established in 2016 and has plants 1 and 2 in Gumi, Gyeongbuk, and the other plant in Sangju. Lithium, nickel, cobalt, and manganese are recovered from used batteries or lithium waste (scrap) contained in electric vehicles, smartphones, and energy storage systems (ESS), and then manufactured into cathode material raw materials such as lithium carbonate, nickel sulfate, and cobalt sulfate. Sales revenue were recorded 50 M/$ in 2022.
JYTech's competitive strength is its environment-friendly technology. A technology that minimizes wastewater generation is being applied in the process of extracting lithium. CEO Park explained, “The existing recycling method used by other companies produce a lot of waste water when leaching lithium, but we have overcome this problem.”
The quality is also excellent. The pre-extraction method, first developed by JYTech, pre-extract lithium with a purity of 99.5% or more using water after applying heat to the material, and then recovering cobalt and nickel later. The lithium recovery rate also exceeds 85%. On the other hand, other companies dissolve it with acid and extract cobalt and nickel first, and then extract lithium last. This method has the problem that impurities are dissolved together in the solution, lowering the purity of lithium. CEO Park emphasized, “The cost of lithium processing can be reduced through the pre-extraction method, so the cost competitiveness is higher than competitors.”
JYTech try to leap forward through cooperation with LG Chem. In 2022, LG Chem signed a contract to make an equity investment worth 30 M/$ in JYTech. Accordingly, JYTech plans to build a battery recycling plant in Tennessee, USA, where LG Chem is building a large-scale cathode material production plant. In particular, as Chinese battery materials are excluded from the North American market due to the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), there is an urgent need to establish a supply chain of raw materials that can replace them.
CEO Park said, “The role of recycling is absolute in the circulation system where secondary batteries produced with lithium are returned to lithium,” and “Even if Donald Trump, who had a negative stance on electric vehicles, is elected as the next president, the scale of waste batteries of the electric vehicles sold so far is bound to be enormous.” he predicted.
“We are considering establishing a new battery recycling base in Europe as well. The Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA), which EU has announced, includes mandatory recycling of lithium and nickel. JYTech begun its overseas expansion, plans to conduct an initial public offering (IPO) within this year to raise investment funds.
CEO Park said, “Once expansion into Europe is confirmed, we plan to starting the construction of local factory from next year. As major countries around the world are strengthening environmental, social, and governance (ESG) policies, 99% of waste batteries will eventually be recycled.”