R3 Lithium announced the start of operations at its Covington, Georgia facility, where it will produce lithium carbonate from 100% recycled battery materials. The company said the 154,000-square-foot site is North America’s first proven commercial-scale lithium carbonate recovery facility. R3 Lithium acquired the plant in July 2026, retained the leadership team that previously demonstrated commercial-scale recycled lithium production there in 2025, and is investing to bring the operation to continuous commercial production.
The company also said it has secured $15 million in Series A funding from investors including Integral GlobalTech Partners, TDK Ventures, and Axial Partners. According to R3 Lithium, the new capital will be used to upgrade the existing lithium carbonate production line, which it described as the first in U.S. history to produce 99% purity lithium carbonate from 100% recycled content at production scale. The company said it holds approximately $1 billion in signed offtake agreements.
R3 Lithium said its Covington facility will recover, refine, and return lithium carbonate to the domestic battery supply chain through a calciner-based crystallization and water-based precipitation process. The production flow takes battery materials from shredded black mass to finished lithium carbonate on a single site, without primary mining or non-domestic refining. The plant includes 30,000 metric tons of shredding capacity and a 2,500-metric-ton lithium carbonate production line, with space reserved for an additional 2,500-metric-ton line.
The company projects that the facility could account for more than 50% of total U.S. lithium carbonate production in 2027. It said demand for lithium carbonate is rising across defense, electric vehicle, consumer electronics, and data center applications. R3 Lithium noted that global battery storage demand rose 51% in 2025 to more than 300 gigawatt-hours of installations, and that battery energy storage capacity is projected to expand sixfold between 2025 and 2030 at a 42% compound annual growth rate.
R3 Lithium added that every gigawatt-hour of grid-scale battery storage uses approximately 880 tons of lithium carbonate.
Source: R3 Lithium
