Ace Green Recycling secures battery material supply agreement

Battery recycling technology developer Ace Green Recycling Inc., Houston, says it has secured a battery material supply agreement with Miami-based trading firm OM Commodities LLC.

Under the agreement, OM Commodities, which specializes in the trading of ferrous and nonferrous scrap, primary metals and residues, will supply Ace with at least 30,000 metric tons of lead scrap per year, which Ace says it expects to recycle at its planned flagship facility in Texas. Production is expected to begin in 2026.

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Ace says the level of feedstock supplied by OM Commodities is sufficient to cover 100 percent of its phase one recycling capacity at its future Texas plant. The agreement is for a period of at least 15 years and Ace says it provides the option to obtain more supply from OM Commodities as Ace scales up its recycling operations. The firms say they are in active discussions for future lithium battery recycling collaborations.

“Ace is a true pioneer when it comes to providing an environmentally friendly and economically superior solution to recycle valuable material from lead scrap,” OM Commodities President Yiannis Dumas says. “We look forward to supporting Ace with lead feedstock as they scale up their operation in Texas and helping create a more circular and sustainable battery materials supply chain in the U.S.”

Ace claims there is more than 1.5 million metric tons of lead battery scrap available for recycling in the United States alone, adding that there is a “critical gap” in smelter capacity to keep valuable lead material within the domestic supply chain. The company says its Greenlead recycling technology is a fully electric process that produces zero Scope 1 emissions and is capable of recovering up to 99 percent of battery-grade lead with more than 99.98 percent purity.

The company says its process is designed to replace legacy smelting operations that are “detrimental to the environment and human health due to potential lead poisoning,” adding that its process helps to facilitate a more streamlined permitting process.

“We believe that Ace’s future Texas facility is poised to play a key role in addressing many of the current challenges in the lead industry in the U.S., while helping the country meet the growing domestic demand for valuable battery materials,” Ace co-founder and CEO Nishchay Chadha says. “This agreement with OM Commodities will provide us with enough supply to support our Texas facility during all of its current planned phases, enabling us to achieve optimal efficiencies as we deploy our solutions in the U.S. market. With OM Commodities being a U.S.-based leader in metals doing business across the Americas and Asia with a specialty in lead batteries, we look forward to leveraging their expertise in the space as we advance our scale-up efforts.”

Advancing public listing plans

On April 29, Ace and New York-based Athena Technology Acquisition Corp. II (ATAC II) filed a registration statement on Form S-4 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in connection with the companies’ previously announced business combination, pursuant to the business combination agreement that Ace and ATAC II entered into on Dec. 4, 2024, which is expected to be completed in the second half of this year, subject to customary closing conditions.

Once completed, Ace says it expects to become a public company in the U.S., with its common stock listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market LLC. The company says it expects its common stock to trade under the ticker AGXI.

“This filing is an important step in Ace’s plans to become a public company in the U.S.,” Chadha says. “As we continue to scale our lead and lithium battery recycling technologies to help support the markets for both internal combustion engines and electric vehicles, we expect that our upcoming listing will be a key accelerator of growth for Ace.”