A business in the United States and a South African investment business have signed a term sheet to form a joint venture to build and operate two environmentally sustainable battery recycling facilities in South Africa. Through the joint venture, the companies aim to bring radical change to the management of South Africa’s battery waste.
The partners are Tabono Investments, a leading investment company in Africa with experience in mining, logistics and recycling and ACE Green Recycling, an innovative recycling platform for battery materials.
“Green energy is on the rise in South Africa,” said Tabono co-founder Liran Assness, “and with it, lead-acid and lithium-ion battery usage.”
Tabono’s other co-founder Reon Barnard added, “With dedicated environmentally friendly ways of recycling batteries, the world can leverage valuable materials like lead, lithium and cobalt, and power our future in a less harmful way.”
The facilities will separately process and recycle lead-acid and lithium-ion batteries utilizing ACE’s proprietary technology that creates zero Scope 1 emissions by operating without fossil fuel-based heating. Both recycling facilities will be greenfield projects to be developed and operated by the joint venture. Under the new structure, ACE will have 51 per cent ownership and Tabono will own 49 per cent.
“We are committed to ensuring emerging markets benefit from our clean battery recycling solutions,” said Nishchay Chadha, ACE CEO and co-founder. “Combining our expertise with Tabono will ensure the development of safe and sustainable closed-loop solutions for battery materials within South Africa.”
Once established, the joint venture will leverage each partner’s strengths. ACE has developed a portfolio of proprietary technologies to recycle lead-acid and lithium-ion batteries and capture their critical materials at market-leading recovery yields. Tabono brings vast experience in the minerals and industrial services industries across Botswana, Mozambique, Tanzania and South Africa.
Earlier this year, Tabono Investments acquired a stake in Advanced Group, a risk management, mitigation and emergency response specialist entrenched in the mining sector.
About Tabono Investments
Tabono Investments is an owner-managed investment business focused on profitable businesses in highly specialised sectors. We are attracted to difficult, risky and specialised concerns that we can support to grow into significantly sized businesses within three years. Built by entrepreneurs from the ground up, Tabono Investments is excited by mining, industrial, services and logistics businesses which are highly specialised and hands-on.
About ACE Green Recycling
ACE Green Recycling is a U.S.-based green recycling technology company with global operations across North America, Europe and Asia and is the only battery recycling tech platform with sustainable solutions for both Lead-acid (LAB) and Lithium-ion (LIB) batteries. The company is also developing clean technology solutions for other metallic waste streams. ACE’s green recycling technology aims to assist the battery industry in making global electrification sustainable.
