Cirba Solutions to pour $300 mln into South Carolina battery recycling plant

March 22 (Reuters) - U.S.-based Cirba Solutions will invest more than $300 million in a lithium-ion EV battery recycling plant in South Carolina that will produce materials to power over 500,000 batteries every year, the company said on Wednesday.

Global demand for lithium batteries has boomed as more customers opt for electric cars and energy storage systems and governments seek to reduce their carbon footprint.

Operations are expected to begin in late 2024 at the 200-acre plant located near Columbia, South Carolina in Richland County, Cirba said, adding it will create over 300 jobs.

The plant will focus on processing end-of-life hybrid and electric-vehicle batteries, gigafactory scrap and end-of-life consumer batteries to extract critical materials like nickel, cobalt and lithium.

Charlotte, North Carolina-based Cirba was awarded $75 million from the U.S. government last year to expand its Ohio facility. It plans to invest more than $1 billion over the next five years to expand the infrastructure for battery recycling.

Reporting by Eva Mathews in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.