Altilium

Altilium is a Plymouth-based clean technology company founded in 2020 with a mission to build a circular economy for electric vehicle batteries in the UK. As the EV transition accelerates, the supply of critical battery minerals — lithium, nickel, cobalt, and graphite — is becoming a strategic national challenge. Over 100 million EV batteries are expected to reach end-of-life globally in the next decade, and Altilium is building the infrastructure to turn those retired batteries into a domestic source of battery-grade materials.

Altilium's proprietary EcoCathode™ process recovers over 95% of cathode metals and 99% of graphite from end-of-life EV batteries and gigafactory waste, producing high-purity cathode active material (CAM) that can be fed directly back into battery manufacturing. Independent research from Imperial College London has confirmed that Altilium's recycled materials match or surpass the performance of virgin-mined materials in battery cells, with 24% lower emissions than conventional hydrometallurgical recycling.

The company has partnered with JLR and Nissan to demonstrate full battery circularity in the UK, and is building a staged scale-up pathway: from its Technology Centre in Devon (ACT 1) and pilot facility (ACT 2), to a new ACT 3 refinery plant in Plymouth now under construction and a planned mega-scale ACT 4 facility in Teesside. In 2024, Altilium received a £4 million strategic investment from Japanese trading group Marubeni Corporation as part of its Series B.