In a decisive move toward reshoring battery material production, Princeton NuEnergy (PNE) has announced the full commissioning and operation of its Advanced Black Mass (ABM™) production facility in Chester, South Carolina.
This marks the United States’ first commercial-scale facility capable of producing both ABM and battery-grade cathode active material (CAM) from lithium-ion battery scrap using direct recycling technologies—positioning the company at the forefront of domestic supply chain resilience.
The Chester plant, which boasts an initial processing capacity of 5,000 tonnes per annum (tpa), is fully permitted and compliant with stringent federal and state environmental standards. Leveraging PNE’s proprietary low-temperature plasma-assisted separation process (LPAS™), the facility has achieved a materials recovery yield exceeding 97%. This is significantly above current industry norms and enables the production of high-value downstream feedstock—key for U.S.-based battery manufacturing.
Dr. Chao Yan, CEO and Co-Founder of PNE, noted that the facility demonstrates “the United States can lead in battery materials recovery and manufacturing — not years from now, but today.” His comments reflect growing pressure to de-risk global battery supply chains by investing in closed-loop domestic systems.
PNE’s technology differentiates itself by directly recovering cathode and anode materials—both from manufacturing scrap and end-of-life batteries—without the costly and carbon-intensive steps typical of traditional pyrometallurgical or hydrometallurgical processes. The LPAS™ method reportedly lowers costs by 38% and reduces the environmental footprint by 69%, according to internal assessments.
The facility is currently configured to handle both nickel-cobalt-manganese (NCM) and lithium iron phosphate (LFP) chemistries, aligning with the broader shift in the North American EV sector toward a diversified chemistry mix. Its output is tailored to serve U.S. battery cell manufacturers seeking high-purity, domestically sourced inputs with full traceability.
Expansion plans are already in motion: capacity is set to triple to 15,000 tpa by 2026, with the infrastructure in place to scale up to 50,000 tpa as demand increases. This would make the Chester site one of the largest such facilities in the Western Hemisphere.
