SK Ecoplant Company said it had completed construction of its second battery recycling plant in China to meet rising demand from the country’s fast expanding electric vehicle (EV) market and well as from used electronic products such as laptops and smart phones.

The new plant, in Jiangsu province, has annual processing capacity of up to 2,000 tonnes of black mass, or shredded material derived from used battery cells containing minerals such as lithium, copper, cobalt and nickel.

The company already has a battery recycling plant in Shanghai and is scheduled to complete expansion of the Jiangsu plant by the end of 2024, doubling its capacity to 4,000 tons per year.

At the end of 2022, Jiangsu province was home to 10 EV battery plants, according to SK Ecoplant, including facilities owned by China’s largest EV manufacturer BYD. The company wants to establish deals with local EV manufacturers to process used batteries and recover valuable minerals.

Recycling used batteries is seen as a new growth engine for SK Ecoplant, particularly as global EV sales continue to rise sharply. The company has a network of 50 recycling plants for various waste products worldwide, including Asia, North America and Europe.