The Company has acquired land and a building to be used as a new base for a lithium-ion battery recycling plant in Hitachinaka City, Ibaraki Prefecture.

1. Reasons

To achieve 14,000 tons of lithium-ion battery (hereinafter “LIB”) processing capacity, which is a target of VOLTA Inc., a consolidated subsidiary of the Company (Head Office: Fuji City, Shizuoka Prefecture, President: Kenta Imai, hereinafter “VOLTA”) by the fiscal year ending June 30, 2027 in the Medium-Term Management Plan, we will expand our plant base to the Kanto area, where LIB-related manufacturers are planning to build plants.

Excerpts from the financial results for 2Q of the fiscal year ending June 30, 2023

2. Details regarding the acquisition of the plant

VOLTA produces black mass* from collected LIB. The plant currently in operation processes approximately 1,200 tons of LIB and has a LIB processing capacity of about 2,500 tons, while regarding Ibaraki Plant, we will build a black mass production plant with a processing capacity of 5,000 tons, which will triple the current processing capacity to 7,500 tons in total.

Ibaraki plant will intend to collect process waste from plants that are expected to generate waste LIB. It is also expected to collect used LIB from the Kanto area, which has a high population density.

*Black mass (BM): Concentrated residue of lithium, cobalt and nickel sorted from lithium-ion batteries that have been discharged, dried and crushed.

3. Collection and processing strategy with hub and spoke system

Through the joint development with Mitsubishi Materials Corporation relating to hydrometallurgical technology disclosed on December 2, 2022, we are also developing technology to collect and smelt specific minor metals (cobalt, nickel, and lithium) from black mass. We will establish this technology and start operation of a hydrometallurgical plant by FY2025.

With the hydrometallurgical plant as a hub, we will establish a collection and processing scheme based on a hub and spoke system, with black mass production plants as spokes in Japan and overseas in the future.   

Excerpts from the financial results for 2Q of the fiscal year ending June 30, 2023

4. Details of the acquired assets

5. Outline of the seller

The seller is a single domestic corporation. There is no capital relationship, human relationship, business relationship, or matters requiring special mention as a related party between the seller and the Company.

6. Schedule

7. Corporate information

8. Future outlook

Although this acquisition will not have a significant impact on the fiscal year ending June 30, 2023, the Company believes that this will contribute to the medium- to long-term growth of the financial results and the corporate value of the Company Group.