Ascend Elements, Inc. is midway through a chapter 11 wind-down in the Southern District of Texas (Judge Christopher M. Lopez), having just secured court approval to sell its Covington, Georgia battery-materials facility to R3 Lithium, Inc. and now steering toward a liquidating plan with a mid-August 2026 confirmation target.
The debtor—a Westborough, Massachusetts-based lithium-ion battery recycler using proprietary Hydro-to-Cathode technology—filed on April 9, 2026 after liquidity collapsed amid a halted, 60%-complete Apex 1 construction project in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, a disputed prime-contractor relationship, utility-connection delays at Covington, and weak battery-materials markets Voluntary PetitionDkt. 1. The petition estimated assets between $1 billion and $10 billion against liabilities of $500 million to $1 billion, and the first-day declaration reported roughly $103.5 million of funded debt—$20 million of Senior Secured Convertible Notes and $83.1 million of Junior Secured Convertible Notes (both agented by Alter Domus (US), LLC and maturing June 12, 2027) plus a small Hopkinsville mortgage—alongside more than $145 million of contested statutory mechanic's-lien claims and a $207 million Department of Energy grant carrying a reversionary interest in funded equipment Austin DeclarationDkt. 11.
Early-case liquidity rested on consensual cash-collateral use, opened by an emergency motion and an interim order granting adequate-protection liens and superpriority claims to the prepetition secured parties Cash Collateral MotionDkt. 18 . The restructuring then pivoted to a court-supervised sale process: after marketing the Covington assets, the debtor designated R3 Lithium as successful bidder and cancelled the auction, with the sale—$3 million cash plus assumption of over $1 million in liabilities—grounded in section 363(f) and defended over objections from AMCON Industrial, the Georgia Environmental Protection Division, Oracle, and PowerTech . The Georgia EPD's $750,000 unsecured claim for Covington closure costs and its challenge to transferability of the facility's hazardous-waste variance were resolved through the purchaser's assumption of the variance and maintenance of a letter of credit .
At the June 29, 2026 hearing the court approved the Covington sale and de minimis asset-disposal procedures, while contested overbilling allegations central to the case remain live—RMF Nooter is preserving its defenses against the debtor's roughly $16 million fraud and overcharge theory in connection with the debtor's proposed settlement with the United States RMF Nooter ObjectionDkt. 528. A status conference is set for July 8, 2026 to take up lien-adversary scheduling and disclosure-statement timing June 29 MinutesDkt. 529, and the debtor intends to file a liquidating plan and disclosure statement within roughly two weeks June 29 HearingDkt. 531.
