We are the only facility in India capable of handling all kinds of end-of-life lithium-ion batteries
8 min read
Attero is one of India’s biggest e-waste and lithium-ion batteries recycling companies. The company has recently secured the ISO 14064 Certification for Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions Verification. Nitin Gupta, CEO and Co-founder at Attero, shares about their operations and technical capabilites.
Please give us an overview of the scale of operations.
Attero is a deep-tech company with a strong commitment to sustainability. Currently, we hold 46 granted global patents for recycling technologies. Out of these, 9 patents focus on electronic waste, while about 37 target lithium-ion battery recycling. In total, we’ve filed for over 200 patents globally.
What sets us apart is that we’re the only e-waste and lithium-ion battery recycling company worldwide that generates carbon credits through recycling processes. The energy used in our processes to extract pure metals like gold, silver, copper, and aluminum from e-waste — or cobalt, nickel, lithium carbonate, graphite, and copper aluminum from batteries — is substantially lower than that required to mine these metals or obtain them from other secondary sources. Typically, we generate one carbon credit per ton of e-waste recycled and over two carbon credits per ton of lithium-ion batteries recycled.
Our current capacity for e-waste recycling is approximately 150,000 tons annually, and we’re operating at full capacity. We handle around 15,000 tons of battery recycling, also running at full capacity. Attero is achieving an annualised turnover of approximately ₹1,200 crores.
Could you give us more detail on what your Intellectual Property focuses on?
Starting with battery recycling, our technology and IP offer four key advantages.
- We can recycle all types of end-of-life lithium batteries. Currently, we’re recycling LFP battery cells, used in buses and models like the Tata Nexon EV, as well as various NMC battery cells—NMC 811, 622, and others—which are typically found in cars like Hyundai Kona in India and Tesla vehicles abroad. We’re also recycling LCO cells from mobile phones and laptops, as well as LTO cells used in the new hybrids by Maruti Suzuki, Toyota, and others.
- We recover over 98% of pure, battery-grade lithium carbonate, cobalt, nickel, graphite, manganese, copper, and aluminum. Globally, the average recovery rate is below 75%, meaning Attero extracts nearly 50% more from the same input material.
- Our capital expenditure per ton is $3,250. Globally, the Capex per ton is at least $5,500.
- Our operating expenditure is 30% lower than the best in the global battery recycling industry.
On the e-waste side, our technology enables us to set up small-scale, modular plants. Our minimum viable plant capacity for precious metal refining from e-waste is 2,000 tons per year, whereas other players, such as Umicore, operate at capacities of around 100,000 tons per year.
How does India compare globally with respect to recovering precious and usable materials from waste?
From a technology standpoint, Attero’s methods for extracting precious metals like gold and silver from e-waste are best-in-class globally—even better than those employed by U.S. firms and companies like Umicore in Europe. The extraction efficiency is generally on par.
The main challenge in India is that most e-waste is recycled informally, often using unsafe methods like cyanide, sulfuric acid, and open coal burning with lead. For us, the primary competition is this informal sector, which incurs no taxation, labor, or environmental costs. Cyanide used for extracting gold and silver is often dumped into local water sources, and lead fumes are released without pollution control, making this sector competitive in cost despite its lower extraction efficiency.
Recently, however, India’s Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) regulations have driven a shift from the informal to the formal sector. About four years ago, only 1% of e-waste was recycled in the formal sector, with the rest handled informally. Today, 25% is processed by formal recyclers like Attero, while 75% remains in the informal sector. This shift is enabling formal recyclers to recover more precious metals. Thanks to the EPR regulations, the sector is seeing positive changes. The latest EPR updates, which include minimum EPR fees, are another welcome step.
You’re headquartered in Roorkee. Could you also give me an overview of Attero’s other locations and geographical footprint?
Currently, we collect electronic waste nationwide, with operations covering over 1,400 PIN codes. Our services span the country, collecting e-waste and lithium batteries from consumers through a platform called Selsmart. Selsmart is a D2C platform where consumers can view the price we offer online for their e-waste or end-of-life lithium batteries. This gives consumers the advantage of transparent pricing and ensures data security.
Our main recycling plant is in Roorkee, and we are in the process of expanding with four additional recycling plants in the south, west, east, and north, with plans to further increase capacity.
We have contracts with nearly every OEM in the country, so manufacturing waste returns to Attero for recycling. Additionally, we receive end-of-life products through service centres. We also work with aggregators, essentially informal sector collectors who gather e-waste from consumers and supply chains. This collection is also managed digitally through an online platform.
Could you help us understand the economic value of managing e-waste effectively?
The economic value varies depending on the type of e-waste. To give you an idea, though, recycling a washing machine can yield about ₹50 per kg. For a 50 kg washing machine, you’re looking at an economic extraction value of roughly ₹2,500 from the metals and plastics. Similarly, a refrigerator might bring in around ₹2,000. For a mobile phone, the extraction could be around ₹300, and for a computer, about ₹1,000. If we look at specific parts, such as the printed circuit board in a mobile phone, it might provide an extraction value of ₹1,000 per kg. Batteries vary widely, depending on their chemistry, with values from ₹50 to ₹500 per kg.
That’s why giving a single figure is hard, as the output depends on the input material. However, taking a very rough average, we could estimate around ₹100 per kg across all e-waste combined. To put this in context, India currently generates over 4 million tons of end-of-life e-waste annually. Multiplying 4 million tons by ₹1 lakh per ton gives you the potential economic value of e-waste in India.
While many companies are setting up LIB recycling facilities in India, most are limited to mechanical separation of batteries. Which processes are included in Attero’s lithium-ion battery recycling facility?
Everything we receive is fully recycled, extracting pure metals. Each battery cell consists of an anode (99% graphite and 1% silica), a thin aluminium foil as an anode separator, an electrolyte, a copper foil as the cathode separator, and a cathode which holds lithium, cobalt, nickel, manganese, and iron, depending on the battery chemistry.
We are the only facility in the country capable of handling all types of end-of-life lithium batteries. Our output includes pure, battery-grade cobalt sheets with over 99.5% purity and battery-grade lithium carbonate powder with a purity of 99.7%. We also produce pure graphite, a black powder, pure manganese dioxide solution, pure nickel sheets, pure copper and aluminium.
When the cells come in for recycling, the first step involves shredding and some density separation, yielding two output streams. One is a mix of separator and binder materials (such as copper, aluminum, iron, and plastic), while the other is a black powder known as black mass. This black mass contains cathode active materials, anode materials and some traces of copper and aluminum. Most battery recycling firms in India stop at this stage.
There are two primary ways to process black mass. The first is a pyro method, which involves placing black mass into a smelter. However, in this process, materials like lithium carbonate, graphite, and manganese, which have low melting points, are often lost in the slag. As a result, firms using pyro methods (like Umicore in Europe) typically recover 90% cobalt and 90% nickel but zero lithium, graphite, and manganese. This method is also costly, with a CAPEX of $10,500 per ton and high OPEX due to energy demands.
The second method is the hydro process, which involves several chemical steps like leaching, electro-winning, and solvent extraction. Although some global firms use this method, they typically achieve extraction rates of 75% for cobalt and nickel, 50% for lithium, and 0% for graphite. Attero’s technology, however, allows us to achieve over 98% extraction of lithium carbonate, cobalt, nickel, and graphite.
In both India and abroad, Attero actually pays to procure electric vehicle batteries in order to recover graphite and lithium carbonate and sell them back. That’s one of the reasons, that we’re also establishing a battery recycling plant in Poland and another one in the U.S.
What is the current focus of your R&D efforts?
The current focus of our R&D encompasses several key areas.
- Exploring output materials from e-waste, specifically investigating the possibility of producing alloys. For example, can we create alumina from pure aluminum?
- Expanding our input funnel; we’re looking into rare earth materials, particularly recycled magnets that contain neodymium.
- Adapting to future battery chemistries. We aim to stay ahead of the curve by collaborating with manufacturers to evaluate upcoming battery chemistries, ensuring we have the necessary processes in place even before they arrive on the market.
- How do we upscale the materials we currently extract? This is not restricted to just PCAM materials. For instance, we’ve recently isolated an electrolyte from batteries in our R&D lab.
For the end products you generate from lithium-ion recycling, who are the current customers for these products?
India currently lacks a cathode or cell manufacturing setup. In India, lithium carbonate is utilized in various allied industries, such as the pharmaceutical sector. For instance, every psychotropic drug contains lithium carbonate as a key ingredient. Some companies in India incorporate our output into their medications, while others abroad use it to manufacture new cells. Cobalt is applied in specialty chemicals in India, while it is also used in batteries outside the country.
How do you foresee the incoming volumes of end of life batteries evolving?
Incoming volumes are set to change significantly. There is currently about 1 million tons of end-of-life lithium battery waste available for recycling globally. Out of this, more than 75% comes from manufacturing waste. The global Gigafactory capacity currently stands at around 400 GWh, generating approximately 60 GWh of manufacturing waste. This Gigafactory capacity is expected to triple over the next five years, indicating that manufacturing waste will grow significantly.
On the other side, less than 25% of the current waste comes from non-manufacturing sources, including end-of-life consumer electronics, energy storage systems (ESS), EV recall battery packs, and end-of-life EV batteries. The end-of-life EV battery scenario is particularly compelling because EVs began deployment globally around ten years ago, and this will accelerate rapidly in the next two years. If we extrapolate the current figure of 1 million tons, we can see it will reach 2 million tons in the next three years. Of those 2 million tons, if 25% today is non-manufacturing, it could be as high as 50% in the future.
This non-manufacturing input is growing much faster, meaning that recycling capacity will need to expand equally fast to keep up.
This interview was first published in EVreporter Dec 2024 magazine.
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