South Korean battery manufacturer LG Energy Solution Ltd (LGES) and Japan’s Toyota Tsusho Corporation announced that they have agreed to establish a battery recycling joint venture in the US. The new company, to be called Green Metals Battery Innovations LLC, will focus mainly on recycling electric vehicle (EV) batteries.

Under the agreement signed by LG Energy Solution Michigan and Toyota Tsusho America, the two partners will build and operate a pre-processing plant in Winston-Salem, in the US state of North Carolina.

The facility, scheduled to go into operation in 2026, will carry out pre-processing operations to recover black mass containing raw metals such as nickel, cobalt, and lithium, by dismantling and shredding battery production scrap. The black mass will later undergo a separate post-processing stage to extract the valuable raw materials, thus establishing a “battery-to-battery” closed-loop recycling system whereby the recycled materials are used to produce new batteries.

The plant will rely initially on scrap materials generated by LGES in the production of EV batteries for Toyota Motor Corporation. The facility will have an annual processing capacity of 13,500 tons of scrap — equivalent to over 40,000 EV batteries.

Chang Beom Kang, CSO of LGES, said in a statement: “This joint venture will not only help secure a stable supply of key battery materials but also enhance the competitiveness of our recycling business in North America. We are fully committed to leading the recycling market through innovative and differentiated technologies.”

Masaharu Katayama, COO of Toyota Tsusho, added: “We are proud to partner with LGES to advance the battery recycling infrastructure in North America. This joint venture is a significant step toward realizing a circular economy for batteries, which is essential for building a sustainable mobility society.”