Direct Battery Recycling Facilities

Princeton NuEnergy is scaling direct battery recycling with a planned $110 million Cathode-to-Cathode facility in Commerce, Georgia. The 3,000-tonnes-per-year facility will use the company’s low-temperature plasma-assisted separation technology to process nickel-based lithium-ion battery manufacturing scrap. Rather than breaking cathodes into individual elements, the process preserves and rejuvenates their engineered structure, allowing battery-grade material to return to manufacturing in approximately seven days. The company says the resulting material can cost roughly 45% less than comparable virgin material.

For battery manufacturers, this closed-loop model could lower material costs while reducing dependence on imported critical minerals. The modular facility is also designed for replication, with Princeton NuEnergy planning up to 10 additional production lines by 2035. Commercial scaling could strengthen domestic battery supply chains while creating new demand for direct recycling infrastructure.