Battery Recycling & Mineral R&D

Our Story

Element 27 takes its name from the periodic table element cobalt — atomic number 27 (Co). Cobalt is the critical mineral that defines the energy density, longevity, and safety of modern lithium-ion batteries, and it is Element 27's primary focus material. Our company was founded to address a clear gap in Australia's critical minerals landscape: a domestic capability to recycle and recover cobalt, lithium, nickel, and manganese from end-of-life battery packs.

Australia has emerged as a major producer of battery materials — lithium, nickel, and cobalt are mined and exported in significant volumes. Yet the country lacks meaningful domestic capacity to recover those same materials when the batteries they power reach end-of-life. Element 27 was founded to change that.

We are currently in the research and development phase, conducting laboratory experiments to optimise a hydrometallurgical recycling process capable of recovering battery-grade metal salts from lithium-ion black mass. This work will form the technical basis for a pilot-scale recycling facility in Melbourne, targeted for construction in the 2027–2028 period.

Our approach is grounded in proven hydrometallurgical science — wet chemical processing routes that offer higher metal selectivity and purity compared to pyrometallurgical (smelting) alternatives. The process we are developing is designed to be modular and scalable, with the ability to handle feedstock variability across different lithium-ion battery chemistries.