Battery maker LG Energy Solution Michigan and Toyota Tsusho America have established Green Metals Battery Innovations, a joint venture (JV) company focused on battery recycling that will build and operate a preprocessing plant in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

The new plant will handle preprocessing operations to extract black mass, which contains raw metals such as nickel, cobalt and lithium, by dismantling and shredding battery production scrap.

The facility is scheduled to start operating in 2026, and will have a maximum annual processing capacity of 13,500 tons of scrap—equivalent to over 40,000 automotive batteries. 

In the initial stage of the JV’s operation, LG Energy Solution will supply scrap generated during the production of EV batteries for Toyota.

The extracted black mass will undergo a separate post-processing stage to recover raw materials. The JV will aim to further establish a battery-to-battery closed-loop system by which those raw materials are circulated as recycled resources for new battery materials.

“This joint venture will not only help secure a stable supply of key battery materials but also enhance the competitiveness of our recycling business in North America,” said Chang Beom Kang, Chief Strategy Officer of LG Energy Solution.

“This joint venture is a significant step to advance the battery recycling infrastructure in North America,” said Masaharu Katayama, COO of Toyota Tsusho.

Source: LG Energy Solution