The Last Word: Dr Christian Marston, Altilium

The funding will help deliver a new feasibility study on Altilium’s planned Teesside factory, which would recycle elements from spent electric vehicle battery waste into key components for new batteries. What will the study assess, and – if its findings are positive – when could we see construction begin?

The study is all about de-risking the scaleup of our technology and supporting the investment decision for one of the largest green infrastructure projects in the UK. We’ve already done a lot of engineering work for the design of the plant, and we’ve identified a number of potential locations in Teesside.

The region has a world-leading chemical industry, and electric vehicle battery recycling is essentially large-scale chemical processing.

We want to tap into this skilled workforce and know-how, to help position the North East as a leader in the energy transition.

The new study will focus on key aspects such as site selection, environmental impact and the technical viability of scaling up battery recycling operations.

One of the challenges is building the recycling capacity at the largest scale for the economics to work.

For the Teesside plant, we’re talking about processing 150,000 batteries per year and supplying 30,000 tonnes of cathode active materials back into the UK battery industry.

So, the capital expenditure for this kind of infrastructure is very big.

The study is going to examine these economic considerations, including project costs, potential partnerships and financial returns.

We want to complete within nine to ten months, get steel in the ground and start creating highly skilled green jobs, possibly as early as the end of 2025, pending securing the required permits.

The proposed factory has been described as the UK’s largest plant of its kind. What impact would it have on creating a more sustainable motoring sector?

By building a plant at this scale, we’re significantly enhancing the UK’s ability to recycle end-of-life batteries, which means we can close the loop in the life cycle and make electric vehicles even greener.

To get to net-zero, we need to electrify the grid and transport.

This is going to require large volumes of critical minerals, such as lithium and nickel.

Currently, the UK is dependent on the global market for these raw materials, with China dominating supply chains.

Our aim is to give the UK a domestic, sustainable and low-carbon source of these critical materials.

Our recycling process can recover 95 per cent of the cathode metals, including lithium, from spent battery waste, which reduces the need for virgin raw materials and lowers the environmental footprint of electric vehicles.

By keeping these raw materials in the UK, we’re reducing reliance on imported materials, providing industrial resilience and supporting the broader shift towards low-carbon transport.

Critically, the facility will help attract battery manufacturers to the UK, supporting the automotive industry.

It will also enable UK car manufacturers to comply with new EU battery regulations that include strict targets for the recycling and recovery of critical metals.

The funding boost comes against the backdrop of a Labour vow to restore a ban on sales of petrol and diesel vehicles by 2030. Does that commitment provide you with confidence that the UK’s sustainability drive is moving in the right direction?

That commitment really reinforces the urgency of transitioning to electric vehicles.

It provides clear direction and policy stability, which is essential for long-term investments in sustainable technologies like battery recycling.

If you look at the wider context of the Government’s industrial strategy, the new National Wealth Fund and Labour’s ambitions to make the UK a clean energy superpower, it gives us confidence the UK is serious about its sustainability goals, and that companies like Altilium can play a pivotal role in supporting the clean energy future.