Altilium

Altilium is a Plymouth-based clean technology company founded in 2020 by Kamran Mahdavi and Dr Christian Marston, specialising in the recycling of end-of-life electric vehicle batteries and gigafactory manufacturing scrap into battery-grade materials. The company operates the UK's only functioning EV battery recycling facility at pilot scale and is developing what is planned to be the country's largest commercial-scale battery recycling plant, to be located in Teesside.

The problem Altilium addresses is both an environmental and economic one. The rapid electrification of transport is generating a growing wave of end-of-life lithium-ion battery materials, while the UK faces projected shortfalls in battery-grade critical minerals — lithium, nickel, cobalt, and graphite — from 2026 onwards as domestic gigafactory capacity scales up. Almost all of these minerals are currently sourced from abroad, creating supply security risk and a significant embedded carbon cost in every new battery produced. Altilium's mission is to establish a closed-loop domestic supply chain that recovers these materials from waste streams and returns them to the manufacturing base.

The company's proprietary EcoCathode hydrometallurgical process recovers over 95% of key battery metals from end-of-life cells, transforming them back into battery-grade cathode active materials (CAM) and metal sulphates ready for direct reuse in new batteries — with 74% lower CO₂ emissions compared to conventional mining, independently validated by Imperial College London and the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre. The planned Teesside facility will process battery waste from 150,000 EVs annually, producing 30,000 metric tonnes of low-carbon CAM — enough to meet an estimated 20% of the UK's CAM requirement by 2030.

Altilium has raised significant capital across its funding rounds, including a $12 million Series A led by SQM Lithium Ventures, a £4 million strategic investment from Japanese trading group Marubeni Corporation, and a £2.5 million co-investment from Mizuho Bank as part of its Series B — bringing total funding to over $43 million. The company has also received over £5 million in Innovate UK grants and completed a landmark collaboration with Jaguar Land Rover at the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre in 2024.