Redwood Materials plans to expand into the battery materials business

Redwood Materials, a battery recycling startup that seeks to create a circular battery supply chain, is seeking to expand its operations and is actively looking for a new million-square-foot facility, which would cost more than $1 billion.

Redwood Materials, most known as a recycling firm, wants to streamline the supply chain by manufacturing essential battery ingredients in the United States.

According to reports, the firm plans to focus its new facility on manufacturing anode and cathodes foils that are the two key elements of a lithium-ion battery structure. It seeks to reach material output of 100 gigawatt-hours per year, enough to power one million electric cars by 2025.

Furthermore, by 2030, Redwood is looking to produce 500 GWh of battery materials annually to power five million electric vehicles.

If Redwood succeeds, it will join the ranks of the world's most powerful materials companies, many of which are based in Asia.

Credible sources estimate that emissions from battery-pack production could be reduced to 41% by strengthening the cathode supply chain in the United States and consuming a specific amount of recycled materials.

With that in sight, Redwood is constantly planning to expand its operations as recycling alone won't get the firm to these production levels.

In a statement, the company said that it would be building both anodes and cathodes from both sustainably mined material and recycled batteries.

However, Redwood did not disclose any of the details of its partners for this new venture. Still, as per sources, more announcements on the firm's expansion and collaboration are expected in the coming years.

Currently, Redwood Materials has recycling deals with Amazon, Tesla, electric bus maker Proterra, and electric bike maker Specialized Bicycle Components and claims to recover 95-98 percent of critical elements such as lithium, copper, nickel, and cobalt from used batteries.

Source Credit - https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/14/jb-straubels-redwood-materials-is-expanding-into-the-battery-materials-business/