UK recycling specialist Altilium has signed a letter of intent with Australian battery materials company Talga Group to supply Talga with up to 16,000 tons of recycled graphite over a three-year period from 2026. Talga is building Europe’s first anode refinery for natural graphite in Sweden and is developing an anode product made from recycled graphite.
Altium, which recently also announced that it can recycle LFP batteries, will supply Talga with recycled graphite for its Talnode-C Recycled Series. An initial 2,000 metric tons will be available in 2025 to support pre-commercial customer sample production.
Graphite makes up between 25-30 per cent of most lithium batteries and is considered a critical raw material. Both mined and manufactured graphite is heavily concentrated in China, both of which have high carbon footprints. According to Atilium, it can recover 99 per cent of the graphite from end-of-life batteries in a process that reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 77 per cent compared to graphite produced in China.
Talga Group CEO, Martin Phillips said that access to recycled graphite feedstock supports the expansion and diversification of Talga’s anode business. @This development also showcases our innovative process technology and complements the ongoing execution of our flagship natural graphite anode project.”
Recycling of graphite has largely been ignored until recently. Geopolitical tensions have seen a proliferation of alternatives, such as Group14 silicon anode materials, made in the USA, as well as innovative graphite production processes, such as those currently being scaled by UP Catalyst in Estonia, which captures CO2 directly from industries where it is hard to avoid, such as aluminium production, to make carbon for nanotubes and potentially also EV batteries.
Talga is one of the first companies in the world to successfully demonstrate the ability to process recycled graphite for use in battery anode products. In Germany, Tozero also recently announced a breakthrough in graphite recycling. Altilium notes that its collaboration with Talga also aligns with the EU’s sustainability goals and policies. This includes the Critical Raw Materials Act, which stipulates that 25% of the EU’s strategic raw materials must come from recycled sources by 2030. ASX-listed Talga is also building Europe’s first natural graphite anode refinery in Sweden.
Atilium COO, Dr Christian Marson said, “Partnering with Talga aligns with our mission to create a fully circular supply chain for anode materials and builds on our recent success in supplying upcycled cathode active materials (CAM) for validation by a leading OEM.”
Dr Marston noted that, beyond reducing waste and emissions, the two companies were supporting the growth of a sustainable anode material supply chain locally.
Atilium is backed by Japanese trading and investment group Marubeni Corporation and SQM Lithium Ventures. The UK-based clean technology group recycles batteries from two major UK car manufacturers and Gigafactory waste at its Tavistock and Plymouth sites and is working with the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre (UKBIC).
In September 2024, Alitilium announced that JLR was interested in the company’s cathode active materials. The car manufacturer wants to validate pouch cells for electric cars made with Altilium’s recovered cathode active materials. The planned Altilium centre in Teesside is set to become the UK’s largest integrated battery recycling facility, processing 150,000 electric vehicle batteries per year and supplying 30,000 tonnes of CAM per year to the UK’s growing Gigafactory complex.
Talga Group is based in Perth, Western Australia, and is building Swedish-owned graphite facilities to mine and refine high-grade natural graphite. The Group is currently completing a commercial study funded by Innovate UK on producing lithium-ion battery anode products using recycled graphite sourced from black mass recyclers.
