ABMC, which is changing its name to American Battery Technology Company, has entered into a lands rights agreement to secure a 12.5 acre site in Fernley for the plant by September 15.

The equipment for the first phase recycling plant is expected to be delivered within the next six months, while a production facility will also be built within the same timeframe, said ABMC.

"The parallel efforts of the manufacturing of the custom process equipment and the construction of the processing facility will allow for minimum time and costs to enable first start-up of this first-of-kind integrated process," said chief technology officer Ryan Melsert.

The company's recycling system consists of two phases of processing operations. The first phase involves the disassembly and separation of battery end-of-life materials and battery manufacturing waste into intermediate products of value. These intermediate products will be sold directly to the secondary processing markets.

In a later second phase, ABMC will have built out its own capacity to upgrade intermediate products to battery grade metal feedstocks, to be sold back into the high energy density cathode supply chain.

The company anticipates financing the building of this initial recycling facility with a conventional 36-month construction financing of approximately US$5.5 million including: the purchase cost of the building site, an initial 30,000 square foot industrial building, and initial battery recycling equipment and utility infrastructure. 

Previously, the company noted that northern Nevada is an ideal location for ABMC to open its initial recycling facility due to the proximity to Tesla's Gigafactory 1 - a lithium-ion battery and electric vehicle subassembly factory-, and developed road and rail infrastructure.