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Recycling secures Phase 2 Grant & Booster Funding

March 4, 2025

Sucessful Completion of Phase 1 of Battery Recycling Accelerator Programme Secures Phase 2 Grant and Additional Booster Funding

Gelion (AIM: GELN), the Anglo-Australian battery innovator, announces that its UK subsidiary, Battery Minerals Ltd (“Battery Minerals”), has successfully completed Phase 1 of the Advanced Propulsion Centre UK’s (APC) Technology Developer Accelerator Programme (TDAP) and has subsequently secured £100,000 of Phase 2 grant-funding along with an additional £75,000 booster grant from the UK’s Department for Business and Trade (DBT) as part of the programme to accelerate commercialisation of its recycling technology. Battery Minerals is developing Lithium-Ion (“Li-Ion”) recycling, a subset of the package of battery related technologies that Gelion acquired from Johnson Matthey in 2023.

The focus of TDAP Phase 1 was to demonstrate commercial traction by engaging prospective customers and partners to support the scale-up and commercial deployment of the technology, which has been achieved.

During Phase 1, Battery Minerals successfully demonstrated:

  • commercial demand for its recycling technology offering;
  • the technology design concept for a modular unit that:
    • integrates with existing black mass producers, enabling lithium extraction with significantly lower capital investment requirements;
    • enables localised processing to reduce dependence on external supply chains; 
    • aims to provide a cost-effective operation, even at smaller scales. 

These milestones reinforce the potential of Gelion’s technology to drive sustainable, efficient, and economically viable battery recycling solutions.

The technology would circumvent the need for large-scale refineries, which are significantly higher cost and have a longer build time and allow localised processing of battery waste. It is timely given the EU’s minimum recycled content targets for batteries (minimum 6% lithium from recycled sources in 2031)[1] and shift by battery makers and OEMs to increase recycled content in their cells.  

Progression to Phase 2 of the programme indicates the validation from the APC and partners for Battery Minerals technology’s potential and the commercial traction achieved.

Phase 2 of TDAP, running between February 2025 and November 2025, focuses on ‘Technology Validation’ and will involve the further development of the recycling process with partners to increase the technology-readiness level (“TRL”) and potentially support a feasibility study for a larger scale pilot plant. The booster grant was awarded to selected participants moving into Phase 2 and will enable Battery Minerals to accelerate research by establishing a dedicated laboratory facility and expanding the research team.

The growing volume of battery waste presents an environmental challenge, an economic opportunity (projected to be worth $30-40 billion globally by 2030[2]) and a strategic opportunity (self-sufficient minerals supply).

Read full announcement

[1] https://www.iea.org/policies/16763-eu-sustainable-batteries-regulation

[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1103263/li-ion-battery-recycling-market-size/

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