Battery recycler Ecobat has closed the sale of its lithium recycling business, cutting its last remaining lithium operations at the Casa Grande, Arizona plant and completing a multi-year retreat to a North American lead-only footprint.
Ecobat exits lithium
The Dallas-based company said on September 2 the transaction covers its lithium-ion battery recycling operations and assets in Casa Grande. Terms and buyer were not disclosed. Casa Grande had been running since April 2024, and Ecobat's prior lithium sites in Darlaston, United Kingdom and Hettstedt, Germany were sold earlier in the divestiture program, so the Arizona closing effectively pulls the company out of lithium entirely.
Refocused on North American lead
"This sale completes our exit from lithium recycling and allows us to devote our full attention and resources to our core strength: operating our North American lead recycling business," Ecobat President and CEO Tom Slabe said in the announcement, adding that Ecobat will continue "to pursue opportunities to maximize value for shareholders." The company now runs three U.S. lead and critical-mineral recovery facilities that recover lead, tin and antimony from millions of end-of-life batteries each year.
Lithium recycling sector still shaking out
Ecobat's retreat lands in a bruising year for early-mover lithium recyclers, with cathode-metal prices depressed and Chinese black-mass supply undercutting U.S. and European hydrometallurgy plants. It also follows a wave of Ecobat asset sales — China's freeze on new battery-storage cell factories and Flex's $4.4B acquisition of EPC Power suggest capital is rotating from lithium recycling into upstream cell and inverter supply. Ecobat's German and Austrian operations were divested to Clarios earlier in 2026, and its French lead sites to Campine.
Reporting based on coverage from PR Newswire, Batteries International and Ecobat.