Leading the Industry with Eco-Friendly New Technologies
IS Dongseo is making a full-scale entry into the secondary battery recycling market by investing in a stake in Lithion, a battery recycling company.
[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Lee Seryeong] IS Dongseo has officially entered the battery recycling market by investing in shares of Lithion, a battery recycling company.
IS Dongseo expects that this investment will lead the domestic secondary battery recycling market with eco-friendly new technologies and enable proactive responses to strengthening environmental regulations.
They secured more than 5% of Lithion's shares by participating as major investors in the IMM Global Battery Fund I and the IMM Clean Energy Transition Fund I.
They agreed to contract exclusive domestic business rights using Lithion's technology and to jointly enter overseas markets. Additionally, by joining Lithion's board of directors, they will actively participate in management and advance into the global secondary battery recycling market.
IS Dongseo acquired Inseon Motors, a subsidiary of Inseon ENT, in 2019 and invested in Town Mining Company (TMC) in 2021.
They explained that with additional investments, they have secured competitiveness in the entire battery recycling value chain, from 'waste battery collection - crushing - recycling.'
Lithion is a Canadian battery recycling company that uses an eco-friendly wet process that does not generate wastewater or dust during the waste battery crushing process. It boasts technology with high recovery rates for extracting raw materials from lithium-ion batteries and regenerating them into high-purity battery materials.
Inseon Motors is the largest and highest-performing automobile recycling company in Korea, possessing the necessary technology and patents for safely collecting, transporting, diagnosing, evaluating, dismantling, and storing waste batteries.
TMC is the first company in Korea to acquire technology and patents for reusing scrap generated during battery production as core battery raw materials, holding numerous key patents related to secondary battery recycling for nickel, cobalt, manganese, lithium, and more.
IS Dongseo supplies battery raw materials to secondary battery material and cell manufacturers by recycling waste batteries collected through Inseon Motors at its affiliate TMC.
With the investment in Lithion, they plan to strengthen cooperative relationships with secondary battery companies and actively participate in their overseas market expansion. They also plan to invest approximately 300 billion KRW additionally in the domestic battery recycling business and proceed with the project in stages.
In the first phase, they plan to start construction within this year of a facility capable of processing about 7,500 tons of waste batteries annually, equivalent to approximately 15,000 electric vehicles.
They stated that this will be a high-recovery battery recycling facility applying Lithion's latest waste battery crushing technology and will introduce Korea's first eco-friendly wet process.
In the second phase, they will expand the factory to process 15,000 tons of battery raw materials annually by applying Lithion's wet technology.
IS Dongseo forecasts that the secondary battery recycling market will officially open from 2025, grow to 20.2 trillion KRW by 2030, and expand up to 600 trillion KRW by 2050.
An IS Dongseo official said, "We are actively responding to become a leader in the secondary battery recycling industry and establish ourselves as an ESG-leading company through continuous investment in the future."
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
