Princeton NuEnergy Inc. (PNE; Bordentown, New Jersey), a U.S.-based advanced battery materials company pioneering direct recycling technologies, has announced that it has been selected to enter award negotiations for a $50 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to support the construction of a domestic closed-loop Cathode-to-Cathode® rejuvenation facility in Commerce, Georgia.
The $110 million project, including a $60 million company cost share, will establish a 3,000 tons-per-year first-of-its-kind facility utilizing PNE’s proprietary low-temperature plasma-assisted separation, or LPAS™, technology, and create 70 full-time manufacturing jobs and approximately 100 construction jobs.
Designed to process nickel-based lithium-ion battery-manufacturing scrap, the facility will recover and rejuvenate cathode active material for return to battery manufacturing, creating an integrated, closed-loop domestic battery supply chain.
“This selection represents an important validation of Princeton NuEnergy’s technology and our ability to bring direct recycling to commercial scale,” said Joe Fisher, Chief Commercial Officer of Princeton NuEnergy. “By deploying our Cathode-to-Cathode® process alongside battery-cell manufacturing, we can transform manufacturing scrap directly back into high-quality cathode active material while lowering costs and strengthening America’s domestic battery-material supply chain.”
“We are grateful for the Department of Energy’s Office of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation (CMEI), Manufacturing Deployment Office (MDO), support and look forward to bringing this project into operation,” said Dr. Chao Yan, founder and CEO of Princeton NuEnergy.
PNE’s Cathode-to-Cathode® process is designed to preserve and rejuvenate the engineered structure of cathode materials rather than breaking them down into their constituent elements through conventional recycling processes.
By locating the facility alongside battery manufacturing operations, PNE will create a streamlined closed-loop system capable of returning rejuvenated cathode active material to battery manufacturing in approximately seven days.
PNE’s process can produce rejuvenated cathode active material at a cost of roughly 45 percent below that of comparable virgin material, without materially damaging the cathode structure.
The project is intended to establish a domestic source of battery-grade nickel-manganese-cobalt cathode active material while reducing reliance on imported battery materials and strengthening U.S. critical-mineral and energy security.
The Commerce facility will serve as a commercial demonstration of PNE’s modular Cathode-to-Cathode® platform and provide a foundation for broader deployment across the U.S. battery manufacturing industry.
Following a successful demonstration of the project, PNE plans to deploy as many as 10 additional privately financed production lines, potentially increasing total capacity to approximately 30,000 tons per year by 2035.
More than 90 percent of the proposed facility’s equipment is expected to consist of standard industrial equipment, supporting a modular approach designed for efficient replication and deployment. Data analytics and artificial intelligence will support process optimization and predictive maintenance.
“Direct recycling allows us to retain more of the value already engineered into cathode materials rather than breaking them down and rebuilding them from their constituent elements,” said Stephen Snyder, Chief Strategy Officer of Princeton NuEnergy. “This project gives us an opportunity to demonstrate that approach at meaningful commercial scale and directly alongside battery manufacturing.”