US R3 Lithium Starts Recycled Lithium Carbonate Production, Existing Line Capacity 2,500 tpa

en.Wedoany.com Reported - On September 10, R3 Lithium announced the start of operations at its Covington, Georgia plant, producing lithium carbonate from 100% recycled battery materials. The company also completed a $15 million Series A funding round and has signed offtake agreements totaling approximately $1 billion. The new funds will be used to upgrade the existing lithium carbonate production line and advance continuous commercial operation.

R3 Lithium acquired the approximately 154,000-square-foot facility in July 2026 and retained the core team previously responsible for plant operations. The site had already completed production-scale validation in 2025, producing 99% purity lithium carbonate from 100% recycled feedstock; this new milestone marks the start of operations under the new owner and further transitions intermittent or validation production to continuous commercial operation.

The plant currently has front-end battery material crushing and processing capacity of 30,000 tpa, is equipped with a 2,500 tpa lithium carbonate production line, and reserves space for another 2,500 tpa line. The process route uses calcination crystallization and water-based precipitation to recover lithium from recycled black mass and refine it into lithium carbonate at the same site, without the need to send lithium-containing intermediate materials overseas for refining.

Investors in this $15 million funding round include Integral GlobalTech Partners, TDK Ventures, and Axial Partners. The use of funds has been designated for upgrading the existing production line; the company's next engineering milestone is to increase continuous operating capability rather than build a separate new plant. Under the existing site plan, if the second 2,500 tpa line is subsequently activated, the lithium carbonate site design space can be further expanded, but this second line should not currently be counted as existing operational capacity.