SK Innovation, SungEel HiTech form discarded battery joint venture

South Korea's SK Innovation Co. is forming a joint venture with SungEel HiTech Co., a company that recycles discarded batteries, to extract metals from such batteries and recycle them to produce cathode materials.

The two companies on Tuesday concluded a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on their joint venture at SK Seorin Building in Seoul, with the investment amount and stake composition to be determined. This arrangement will allow SK Innovation to recover metals like nickel, cobalt and manganese from lithium-ion batteries whose lifespans have ended for use in making cathode materials, which are a key component of electric vehicle (EV) batteries.

This recovery and recycling process had been limited to just lithium.

The joint venture will be launched next year and the target date for starting operations is 2025. Korea will get the first plant, followed by those in the US and Europe.

Kang Dong-soo, head of SK Innovation’s Portfolio Divisional Group, said, "We plan to quickly create a circular economic model of recycling battery materials," adding, "We plan to flexibly respond to global regulations on batteries through our competitiveness in recycling technology."

Write to Seo-Woo Jang at suwu@hankyung.com