The 30 second story
You know how your old phone battery eventually dies and gets thrown away? Plymouth-based Altilium has worked out how to turn dead electric car batteries into fresh materials for new ones. The UK government has handed them £18.5 million through the DRIVE35 Scale-Up Fund to expand their EcoCathode process, which extracts the valuable bits from worn-out EV batteries and manufacturing waste, then turns them into the raw materials that battery makers need.
Why it matters
Electric cars are coming whether you drive one or not, and the UK currently imports most of the materials needed to make their batteries. When those batteries wear out in a few years, we face a mountain of expensive waste containing lithium, cobalt, and other valuable metals. Altilium’s process keeps those materials in the UK economy instead of shipping them abroad or dumping them in landfill. The government funding signals they want domestic battery supply chains, which means more manufacturing jobs and less dependence on imports. This connects to automation because recycling processes like this rely heavily on automated sorting, processing, and quality control systems to handle materials safely and consistently at scale.
What this means for your business
- EV adoption creates both waste problems and business opportunities as battery recycling becomes a major industry
- UK manufacturing gets more competitive when raw materials come from domestic recycling rather than overseas suppliers
- Government funding in cleantech signals where future regulations and incentives are heading
- Businesses in logistics, manufacturing, or waste management may find new revenue streams in battery material recovery