# Ascend Elements

> Ascend Elements is a Westborough, Massachusetts battery materials manufacturer that makes engineered lithium-ion battery materials from elements reclaimed from spent EV batteries and gigafactory scrap. Its patented Hydro-to-Cathode direct cathode precursor (pCAM) synthesis process recovers up to 98% of the critical battery metals in end-of-life cells and cuts the carbon footprint of new cathode material by up to 90%. Founded in 2015 as Battery Resourcers out of MIT-affiliated research by Eric Gratz and Prof. Yan Wang.

Ascend Elements publishes **no public developer API** for its battery materials, recycling or logistics business, and operates no developer portal, SDK, CLI, sandbox or status page. The only machine-readable surface on its own hosts is the WordPress REST API behind the corporate website. This file was generated by the API Evangelist enrichment pipeline on 2026-08-02; the provider does not publish an llms.txt of its own (https://ascendelements.com/llms.txt returns HTTP 404).

## Facilities

- Westborough, MA — corporate HQ, R&D, and a demonstration-scale Hydro-to-Cathode direct precursor synthesis line
- Covington, GA — "Base 1", North America's largest EV battery recycling facility
- Hopkinsville, KY — "Apex 1", commercial pCAM plant
- Novi, MI — commercial office

## Products

- Cathode precursor (pCAM) — first pCAM production in North America, first refined pCAM production in Europe
- Battery-grade lithium carbonate (Li2CO3)
- Battery recycling and full-service logistics / materials-tracking services

## APIs

- [Ascend Elements WordPress REST API](https://ascendelements.com/wp-json/): The corporate website's content/CMS surface — 362 routes across 21 namespaces. Anonymously readable; writes require an administrator credential. This is NOT a product API.

## Specs

- [OpenAPI 3.1 (derived)](openapi/ascend-elements-wordpress-rest-openapi.yml): 361 paths, 601 operations, 14 component schemas. Derived by API Evangelist from the live route index and from HTTP OPTIONS schemas — Ascend Elements does not publish an OpenAPI.
- [Overlay](overlays/ascend-elements-wordpress-rest-overlay.yaml): API Evangelist annotations over the derived contract.

## Useful collections

The company-specific custom post types are the parts of this surface with real third-party utility:

- `GET /wp-json/wp/v2/sourcing-events` — open supplier bid packages for the Apex 1 plant (4 live: CSA, Mechanical, Piping and Electrical packages). Suppliers can poll this for open procurement.
- `GET /wp-json/wp/v2/media_coverage` — third-party press coverage of the company (61 items).
- `GET /wp-json/wp/v2/job` — careers board (registered, currently empty), with `job_category` and `job_location` taxonomies. The `job_location` terms double as the published facility list.
- `GET /wp-json/wp/v2/posts` — company news and press releases (66 items).
- `GET /wp-json/wp/v2/search` — full-text search across all published content types.

## Access notes

- Anonymous read: yes, on published content. Anonymous write: no — the `Allow` header on `wp/v2/posts` is `GET` for an unauthenticated caller.
- Auth for writes: WordPress Application Passwords (HTTP Basic), authorized at https://ascendelements.com/wp-admin/authorize-application.php.
- Pagination: `page` / `per_page` (max 100) / `offset`, with `X-WP-Total`, `X-WP-TotalPages` and an RFC 8288 `Link` header.
- Sparse fields: `?_fields=id,slug,link`. Relationship expansion: `?_embed=1`.
- Errors: proprietary `{code, message, data.status}` JSON — **not** RFC 9457 problem+json.
- No rate-limit headers on the API. The HTML front end is a separate matter: **every non-`/wp-json/` path on ascendelements.com returns HTTP 503 with `Retry-After: 600` to non-browser clients.** Scrape the REST API, not the website.

## Artifacts

- [Authentication](authentication/ascend-elements-authentication.yml)
- [Conventions](conventions/ascend-elements-conventions.yml)
- [Error catalog](errors/ascend-elements-problem-types.yml)
- [Data model](data-model/ascend-elements-data-model.yml)
- [Lifecycle](lifecycle/ascend-elements-lifecycle.yml)
- [Conformance](conformance/ascend-elements-conformance.yml)
- [MCP (candidate)](mcp/ascend-elements-mcp.yml) and [tool crosswalk](mcp/ascend-elements-tool-crosswalk.yml)
- [Well-known probe results](well-known/ascend-elements-well-known.yml)
- [Domain security](security/ascend-elements-domain-security.yml)
- [Packages](packages/ascend-elements-packages.yml) — empty; no SDKs exist
- [Agent skills](skills/_index.yml)

## Docs

- [Website](https://ascendelements.com/)
- [About Us](https://ascendelements.com/about-us/)
- [Products](https://ascendelements.com/products/)
- [Services](https://ascendelements.com/services/)
- [Become a Supplier](https://ascendelements.com/sourcing-events/)
- [Corporate Policies](https://ascendelements.com/corporate-policies/)
- [News](https://ascendelements.com/category/news/)
- [Careers](https://ascendelements.com/careers/)
- [Contact](mailto:info@ascendelements.com)

## Not published

Recorded so an agent does not go looking: no developer portal, no API documentation, no getting-started guide, no API reference, no SDKs, no CLI, no Postman collection, no sandbox, no changelog, no status page, no deprecation policy, no roadmap, no GitHub organization, no security.txt, no bug bounty or vulnerability disclosure program, no trust center, no SOC 2 / ISO 27001 / PCI / HIPAA / FedRAMP claim, no OAuth, no GraphQL, no AsyncAPI, no webhooks, no MCP server, and no A2A agent card.

## Disambiguation

Ascend Elements is unrelated to Ascend.io, Ascend Software, Ascend RMS, Ascend.sh, Ascend (useascend.com) or Geoforce Ascend — several of which DO publish developer APIs. Do not attribute their SDKs, docs or endpoints to this company.