ASX BRIEFS

IONDRIVE LTD (ION) - From Batteries To Beyond: How DES Technology Scales Recycling

• Andrew Musgrave

Share episode

Send us a text

A quieter revolution is unfolding inside battery recycling: selective chemistry that finally makes economic and environmental sense. We sit down with Dr Ebbe Dommisse, CEO of Iondrive, to explore how deep eutectic solvents enable clean, closed-loop recovery of critical minerals from battery black mass, e-waste, magnets, and end-of-life solar panels—and why that unlocks real scale.

We trace the strategic entry into Europe through a €3.1 million German battery recycling consortium led by RWTH Aachen and Fraunhofer. With upstream partners supplying black mass and downstream partners preparing to validate cells, the project closes the loop from waste to new materials. Ebbe explains how DES separates nickel and cobalt with high selectivity, cuts the environmental footprint versus hydrometallurgy, and lines up with strict European regulations. Beyond chemistry, the win is commercial: secured feedstock, credible offtake, and performance validation that matters to OEMs.

Urban mining becomes the broader play. In North America, the focus is permanent magnets and rare earth recovery alongside partner Colt Recycling. In Europe, EV batteries still dominate, with solar waste rising fast. In Australia, a wave of retired solar panels brings silver and silicon recovery to the fore, supported by local partnerships and policy engagement. We break down why Iron Drive is pursuing two complementary deployment models—hub-and-spoke for Europe’s centralised processing, and modular, co-located units for the geographic sprawl of the US—so the same DES platform can flex across regions and feedstocks.

We also map the near-term milestones: commissioning an Australian pilot plant supported by a government grant, initial debugging, then shipping to Germany for consortium operations on a defined timeline. Expect announcements on technology expansion across e-waste verticals, plus additional supply and offtake agreements that firm up volume. If you care about battery recycling, rare earth supply chains, and the economics of circular materials, this conversation offers a clear view of where the market is going and how a chemistry-first approach can lead.

If you enjoyed this conversation, follow the show, share it with a colleague who tracks energy transition, and leave a quick review with the one insight you’re taking away.

Andrew Musgrave

Welcome again to ASX Briefs, and today we're thrilled to welcome back Dr. Ebbe Dommisse, the CEO of Iondrive Limited. Iondrive is rapidly commercializing its innovative Deep Eutectic Solvent or DES technology. With a string of rcent binding agreements, the company is positioning its technology as a sustainable platform for recovering critical minerals from battery black mass, e-waste, and even primary mining concentrators. 
 Ebbe, thanks for joining me again and welcome back to the ASX Briefs podcast.

 

Ebbe Dommisse

Hi Andrew, thanks for having us.

 

Andrew Musgrave

All right, now it's been 12 months since we last spoke, so obviously plenty has happened for the company in that period of time. But for investors that may be unfamiliar with your story, can you provide a brief overview of Iondrive and the core advantages of your DES technology?

 

Ebbe Dommisse

Certainly. So Iondrive is a spin-out from the University of Adelaide that's got a magnificent chemical engineering department specializing battery technologies and battery recycling. And they have developed this very attractive Deep Eutectic Solvent technology, which is a solvometallurgical process. In other words, it uses benign organic solvents in a closed loop process to do the recovery of critical minerals. And in our case, metals from recycled batteries is where we started off with. So, it's got advantages above your conventional or traditional processes that use hydrometal pyramid processes, which have very large environmental footprints. And by virtue of having these or having a closed-loop process with benign organic solvents, your environmental footprint is significantly smaller. And then the Deep Eutectic Solvent specifically is a technology that is very good at selectively extracting metals that are difficult to separate from each other in conventional processes. So, in our case with the batteries, again, cobalt and nickel, which sit right next to each other on the periodic table, extremely difficult to separate with traditional processes, and our Deep Eutectic Solvent does a brilliant job of separating them and recovering them at very high recovery rates.

 

Andrew Musgrave

Okay, and your recent news is the participation in a 3.1 million euro funded European battery recycling consortium. So, can you walk us through Iondrive's role in this project and what it means for your commercial entry into the German market?

 

Ebbe Dommisse

Yeah, so the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany is famous for putting together clusters that solve industrial problems. And in this case, it's led by PEM Aachen University with Fraunhofer Institute, who established a consortium of industry partners to establish a battery recycling industry for Germany. And so, we actually were invited to take one of the main seats at the table with our Deep Eutectic Solvent technology. And the whole battery recycling industry value chain is represented by industry partners. So, we've got upstream partners who do the collection of the batteries and processing them to black mass that we then use as feedstock to recover those critical minerals, and then downstream industry partners that take our products and produce battery cells from that. Now, what's not shown in the consortium at this stage is the electric vehicle OEMs, so your BMWs or VWs and the likes. They'll participate later in the consortium, but they will do the final validation of the battery cells to have proof of concept that those recycled metals perform as well in battery cells as virgin metals. So for Iondrive, that is a significant commercial milestone in that not only gives it an entry point or a foothold in the European market, which is the second biggest market for electric vehicles outside of China, but also by participating in the consortium, we secured our feedstock from our upstream industry partners and also offtake for our products with our downstream industry partners. So, in many respects, you know, one couldn't ask for a better arrangement than this consortium to enter a new market by also having security of feedstock and offtake for your products.

 

Andrew Musgrave

Okay, and urban mining is becoming a major global theme through recently announced partnership with Colt Recycling in the US, LAT66 in Europe, and Livium in Australia. How is Iondrive positioning itself within this movement and demonstrating the flexibility of its technology across different regions and waste streams?

 

Ebbe Dommisse

So, our technology has developed into a technology platform where we can extrapolate the technology into or deploy it into different market verticals, being those ones that you've just mentioned on e-waste. So, e-waste can be further broken down into rare earth elements from permanent magnets, the silver and silicon from recycled solar panels, and typically your printed circuit boards that you get in laptops and mobile phones and so on contain precious metals like gold and palladium. So, we've started with development work to be able to process all of those different feedstocks in those different market verticals. And it's really interesting to see how the different geographies across the world have different emphases on those markets. For example, rare earth elements is obviously a big talking point in North America with US, the US and the geopolitical tensions that they have with China. So hence the attractiveness of that business model that we are establishing with Colt Recycling to process the permanent magnets that they recover for us to recover the rare earth elements. And in Germany, it's still by far the most dominant market is the electric vehicle batteries, but also becoming very prominent there is solar panels. And then e-waste is a global problem. It's very strong in America, Europe, and Australia. And then in Australia, you know, leading the world with solar panel adoption, those end-of-life solar panels are coming on markets now in huge volumes and growing exponentially. So hence the importance of that binding MOU that we've signed with Livium to not only suppliers with recycled batteries but also the recycled solar panels. So, if I could summarize all of that, Andrew, it really is different market verticals in different regions or in geographies, so focusing on the rare earth elements in North America, the recycled batteries in Europe, and the solar panels in Australia.

 

Andrew Musgrave

Okay, and with those companies, obviously the DES process is quite versatile, as you mentioned, can recover value from e-waste, magnets, batteries, and solar panels. So, how do the partnerships help accelerate Iondrive's commercial pathway across multiple verticals?

 

Ebbe Dommisse

So, it's really important to have the security of feedstock in recycling. You know, everybody starts scrambling for feedstock when the commercial value is demonstrated. So having security of that feedstock is absolutely critical for the business case. And again, in the case of North America with Colt Recycling, having that security for the permanent magnets to extract the rare earth elements is really important. The same in in Germany with a consortium for the electric vehicle batteries that come to end of life, and in Australia the solar panels that we recover the silver and the silicon from, having that secure feedstock with Livium is super important.

 

Andrew Musgrave

Now, your pilot plant, which is under construction in Australia, which is supported by a $3.9 million Australian government grant, and the plan is to commission it here before shipping it to Germany for the consortium work. So, can you update us on that timeline and the key validation milestones you're targeting?

 

Ebbe Dommisse

Very much on schedule as planned. We start the commissioning work just before Christmas, and we'll continue that in January and February before we do the initial startup and debugging of the process before shipping it to Germany end of quarter one in 2026. So, we want to have that fully operational in quarter two, 2026 in that consortium based at the Aachen University. So, everything very much on schedule and no anticipated delays there.

 

Andrew Musgrave

Okay, now looking beyond the pilot, Iondrive has mentioned both domestic modular processing and larger scale operations as part of its commercial pathway. So, how do you see these two models working together, delivering local processing capability whilst also scaling production to meet global demand?

 

Ebbe Dommisse

Yeah, that's an interesting question and if we look at the difference between the two, so the large-scale operations, what's you know very apparent is in Europe, for example, the battery recycling will work on a hub and a spoke model. So, the spokes will do the collection of the batteries and then it will be transported to a hub where it will get centrally processed in a large operation. Whereas the model in the US is to have modular plants co-located on site with Colt Recycling. So, they have a number of operations in in North America that's very far apart, you know, with the geographic spread there. So, there we will adopt a modular plant approach to have those modular processing units on their different sites. And the advantage of modular units in that case is that you can fabricate them at a manufacturer and then ship them on site as a brownfield operation, just to plug in with their normal operations.

 

Andrew Musgrave

Okay, now just to wrap things up, looking ahead over the next six to twelve months, what are some of the key catalysts and news flow that investors should be watching out for as you advance these projects in Australia, Europe, and the US?

 

Ebbe Dommisse

Yeah, it's always you know the two-pronged approach, Andrew, where we've got technology development in parallel with commercial and development. So, the technology developments would be progressing that Deep Eutectic Solvent platform across the different market verticals to recover different metals from a mixture of recycled materials. So, you know there should be plenty of news in the next nine months articulating how we've progressed with deploying that technology. And then likewise on the commercial side as well, in those three jurisdictions that you've mentioned, Europe, North America, and Australia, you know, more announcement on commercial partnerships, whether it's supply or off-take, or you know, in the case of Australia, for example, we're working closely with the South Australian government and Australia's environmental protection agency in establishing a consortium for solar panel recycling in Adelaide. So, it'll be those kinds of things where we strengthen our commercial and relationships with feedstock supply and off-take agreements. So, there's plenty on the boil, plenty to look forward to.

 

Andrew Musgrave

Okay, Ebbe. Well, it's been great to chat again. So, thanks for your time, and we look forward to further updates from Iondrive in the upcoming months.

 

Ebbe Dommisse

Thanks, Andrew. Thanks for having us.

 

Andrew Musgrave

That concludes this episode of ASX Brie. So don't forget to subscribe, and we look forward to catching you on our next episode.