BCA Industries says its new mobile battery recycling system captures about half of the available high purity black mass during initial processing, which leaves open where the other half goes. The Milwaukee equipment maker designed the system around two semitrailers, and the company’s argument for it is that the hazard of moving damaged lithium ion batteries is a bigger problem than the price of recycling them.
The claim: stabilize on site, ship something inert
John Neuens, industrial consultant at BCA, says transport is the weak link in lithium ion recycling. Shipping costs keep rising, hazardous materials rules add complexity and thermal events are a liability for recyclers, utilities, insurers and processors. He says the EPA and DOT have held numerous meetings and issued guidance, and that the transport problem has not really been solved. BCA says it met insurers involved in lithium ion recycling, processors and cleanup projects, and heard that insurers wanted transport risk eliminated, not managed.
The design follows from that. Batteries are shredded in a sealed nitrogen and water environment, with agitation and controlled water separation that recover black mass without reducing the remaining material to fine particles. One trailer holds the shredding and material handling equipment, and the second holds water treatment and filtration that separate the black mass from the rest. The recovered material is packed into steel drums so it can stabilize before shipment, and the company says this gives added assurance that no residual chemical reactions remain active. Wastewater is collected and processed through an environmental services partner.
The number that carries the economics
Neuens says most of the economics of recycling lie in black mass, not metal separation, and that almost all the value is in the lithium and the black mass. Black mass, once filtered to precursor cathode active material, can return to new battery production. Against that, BCA says the mobile platform captures approximately half of the available high purity black mass at the first processing step, to be sold directly or through specialty brokers. The remaining recovered inert material goes to licensed downstream processors for refining and purification.
The arithmetic is plain. If the company’s description of value is right, a customer that uses the mobile system receives the sale value of about half the black mass, and the report says only that recovered inert material then goes to licensed downstream processors, without saying how the remainder of the black mass is accounted for. For a processor, the mobile unit would act as a pretreatment step that removes the transport hazard and possibly some of the revenue. For an operator with a damaged stationary battery system, it may still be the better option, since the alternative is moving a pack that cannot be moved safely.
What the shipping claim depends on
Neuens says that if the material can be stabilized on site it becomes much safer to ship and may even qualify for shipment as nonhazardous material, depending on the circumstances. That is a conditional statement about regulatory classification, not an approval. The article reports no ruling, test result or regulator’s view, and the company’s own account of EPA and DOT activity is that the discussion continues.
What is not stated
The description gives no throughput in tonnes per hour, no capital or operating cost, no power or water requirement, no number of units built or ordered and no customer. It does not say what share of the original battery mass leaves as drummed inert material, what the wastewater contains or how off gas is treated, and the 50 percent capture figure is a company statement without a test report. BCA has built related equipment before: its LithiBatt division, formed in 2023, offers an electric vehicle pack shredding system with a sealed water and nitrogen environment and progressive shredding, and the company says its technology is used at a facility in Germany. The mobile version has no stated operating record.
The check is operational: a published mass balance for a mobile run, covering input mass, black mass recovered, black mass lost to residue and drummed output, with the classification the shipment received. Until then the 50 percent figure is the number to hold the design to. For a different battery lifecycle question, see the microgrid storage study with an ideal battery model. Source: report on BCA Industries’ portable battery recycling design, 12 October 2026, including statements by BCA industrial consultant John Neuens.
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