Battery recycler files Chapter 11

Ascend Elements, the battery recycler that runs a large plant in Covington, Georgia, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on April 9 in Texas. (pacermonitor.com) The filing appeared in the Southern District of Texas as “Ascend Elements US, LLC,” case number 4:26-bk-90439, with a filing date of April 9, 2026. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported the company’s Covington operation is about 35 miles east of Atlanta. (pacermonitor.com) (ajc.com) Ascend Elements President and Chief Executive Officer Linh Austin said the company had “voluntarily initiated” Chapter 11 after attempts to streamline operations, cut costs and raise more capital did not solve its financial problems. Recycling Today reported the company framed the case as a restructuring aimed at stabilizing long-term operations. (recyclingtoday.com) (christiancountynow.com) Battery recycling companies collect used lithium-ion batteries and factory scrap, shred and separate the material, and recover metals such as lithium, nickel and cobalt for reuse. Ascend said its Covington site was built to process 30,000 metric tons a year from a 154,000-square-foot plant. (ascendelements.com) Ascend spent the past three years pitching itself as part of a domestic battery supply chain that could turn old batteries into new battery ingredients inside the United States. In September 2023, the company said it had raised $542 million, and in February 2024 it said another $162 million brought its 12-month equity total to $704 million. (ascendelements.com) (prnewswire.com) That expansion centered on Apex 1 in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, where Ascend said it was building a 1 million-square-foot plant to make precursor cathode active material, or pCAM, a processed powder used to make electric-vehicle battery cathodes. The company said in February 2025 that it and the U.S. Department of Energy had canceled a separate $164 million grant for cathode active material, while a $316 million pCAM grant remained in place. (prnewswire.com) (ascendelements.com) In that February 2025 statement, Ascend said “changing market conditions” had shifted demand toward pCAM and lithium carbonate and away from cathode active material at the Kentucky site. The company still said then that Apex 1 would become North America’s first commercial-scale pCAM plant when it opened. (ascendelements.com) The Georgia plant was one of the earliest visible pieces of that strategy. When the project was announced in January 2022, Ascend said it would invest $43 million in Covington and create at least 150 jobs; trade publication Recycling Today later described the facility as a $50 million site that began partial operations in August 2022. (ascendelements.com) (recyclingtoday.com) Chapter 11 usually lets a company keep operating while it tries to cut debt, sell assets, or line up new financing under court supervision. For Ascend Elements, the next test is whether that process preserves the Covington recycler and the Kentucky buildout the company spent years financing. (uscourts.gov) (recyclingtoday.com)