Battery Recycling

Lithium Australia has signed a three-year agreement with Volvo Group Australiaʼs bus division on the exclusive recycling of electric and hybrid bus batteries.

Li-Cycle from Canada and Daimler Truck North America have announced a partnership to recycle lithium-ion batteries from electric vehicles.

Redwood Materials collaborates with Ultium Cells in the recycling of waste from battery production in the USA. The materials stem from cathodes and anodes as well as cell scrap.

Kyburz from Switzerland and German drive supplier Vitesco Technologies intend to jointly industrialize an innovative recycling process for lithium-ion batteries.

Porsche, Bosch, the DeepTech&Climate Fonds and other investors are supporting Aachen-based recycling company “cylib” with a 55-million-euro funding round.

Munich-based start-up company “tozero” has begun delivering recycled lithium to its first commercial clients, claiming that its recycling process enables a recovery rate of over 80% for lithium and graphite.

Japan and Europe are set to collaborate on a battery recycling system to facilitate the exchange of information regarding mining sites and suppliers of minerals used in battery production. The system, scheduled to be introduced by 2025, aims to counter China’s dominance as a supplier of rare metals such as lithium. The tracing initiative seeks to prevent the outflow of these strategic rare materials from the regions and facilitate their reuse. Japan’s Information-technology Promotion Agency (IPA), under the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry, will sign a memorandum of understanding with European partners on Monday to facilitate information exchange and mutual certification. Japan and Europe already operate electronic platforms for managing information on electric vehicle batteries. Japan is advancing its industrial data platform named Ouranos Ecosystem, which is expected to involve around 50 companies, including automobile manufacturers such as Toyota Motor, Nissan Motor, and Honda Motor, as well as the battery joint venture between Toyota and Panasonic, Prime Planet Energy & Solutions. In Europe, the public-private data platform Catena-X is already operational, led by automotive manufacturers like BMW and the Mercedes-Benz Group. It is planned to connect Ouranos and Catena-X by 2025 with confidential information pertaining to Japanese companies’ core competencies, such as suppliers and procurement volumes, remaining undisclosed. The initiative’s main goal is to exchange information about the materials used in current batteries and enable their traceability to prevent outflow beyond their own territories. The European Union has decided to introduce regulations mandating the recycling of EV battery materials such as lithium and cobalt within the region. To comply with these regulations, “battery passports” like Catena-X and Ouranos are required to record and manage information along the entire supply chain, including the countries of origin of the materials, production history, recycling rate, and carbon dioxide emissions. The system will enable Japanese companies certified by Ouranos to be automatically certified in the EU. Source: https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Supply-Chain/Japan-Europe-to-link-industrial-data-platforms-for-EV-battery-materials

Volvo Cars has signed a strategic memorandum of understanding with the Chinese battery manufacturer CATL to enter into intensive cooperation in battery recycling. Under this agreement, Volvo Cars will recover old batteries and those scrapped in production from its sold vehicles. The aim is to recover over 90 percent of metals such as nickel, cobalt, and lithium to use them to produce new batteries that will be used in new Volvo vehicles. This partnership aims to promote the recycling of battery materials and reduce the carbon footprint throughout the life cycle of electric vehicles. Volvo Cars has presented its strategy for sustainable development, focusing on the circular economy. The company aims for an average recycling rate of 30 percent for all its models by 2030 and to ensure that new models produced from 2030 onwards contain at least 35 percent recycled materials. The recent partnership with CATL represents another significant breakthrough after jointly leveraging blockchain technology to ensure the traceability of battery raw materials. Volvo Cars and CATL’s collaboration focuses on the closed-loop management of battery materials, which includes dismantling, recycling, and reusing old batteries to reduce carbon emissions throughout their life cycle and promote the circular economy. This initiative is in line with Volvo’s long-term vision to make electric vehicles more environmentally friendly and to drive sustainable change in the automotive industry. Source: Link

BASF has successfully commissioned its prototype metal refinery for battery recycling in Schwarzheide. The facility enables the development of operational processes and optimization of battery recycling technology. Implementing this technology on a larger scale later is intended to enable optimal recovery of valuable metals such as lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese, and copper. The new prototype metal refinery marks another milestone in establishing Europe’s first joint center for battery material production and recycling in Schwarzheide. It complements the existing BASF facility for cathode materials and the battery recycling plant for the production of black mass, which is scheduled to commence operations later this year. “Given the expected rapid growth of the electric vehicle market, battery recycling offers a competitive and sustainable access to key metals,” says Dr. Daniel Schönfelder, President of the Catalysts division at BASF, responsible for the company’s battery material and battery recycling business. “The recovered metals will enable a real, local circular economy for the battery value chain.” BASF aims to develop and expand its metal refining technology to establish a commercial-scale refinery in Europe in the coming years. This will strengthen BASF’s presence in Europe and complement a robust collection network for used batteries and waste from battery production, as well as the production of black mass and battery materials. This approach aims to accelerate the transition to circular electromobility in Europe and support the development of a sustainable ecosystem for battery materials. Quelle: https://www.basf.com/global/en/media/news-releases/2024/04/p-24-122.html

Recycling company Green Li-ion has announced the launch of its new commercial facility for producing sustainable, battery-grade materials – the first of its kind in North America. This facility, integrated into an existing recycling plant, will produce battery-grade cathode and anode materials from concentrated components of spent batteries. In contrast to the conventional recycling process in North America, which involves a complex process chain—from sorting the batteries to further processing abroad, primarily in China and South Korea—Green Li-ion relies on an advanced hydrometallurgical process. This closes the recycling loop by converting recycled scrap directly into high-quality battery-grade cathode material (pCAM) without exporting it for further processing. Thanks to the local plant, Green Li-ion significantly reduces the production time to around 12 hours compared to conventional processes. In addition to increasing efficiency, the Green Li-ion process also offers significant environmental benefits. It is said to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 90 percent compared to producing new materials. In addition, Green Li-ion’s plant is the first of its kind on the continent to process the unsorted black mass of various lithium-ion battery chemistries into pCAM on a large scale, guaranteeing a 99 percent purity, Green Li-ion explains in the press release. Source: https://www.greenli-ion.com/post/green-li-ion-launches-north-americas-first-commercial-scale-plant-to-produce-recycled-lithium-ion-engineered-battery-materials