Mercedes said it has become the world’s first car manufacturer to close the battery recycling loop with its own in-house recycling plant.
The new facility, located in Kuppenheim, southern Germany, is also the first in Europe to feature an integrated mechanical-hydrometallurgical process, which surpasses existing methods to enable an expected recovery rate of more than 96 percent.
The carmaker said scarce and valuable raw materials such as cobalt, nickel and lithium could be recovered in a way that was suitable for use in new batteries.
The recycling plant covers all steps, from the shredding of battery modules to drying and processing active battery materials. The multi-stage mechanical process sorts and separates plastics, copper, aluminium and iron, while the downstream hydrometallurgical process deals with the so-called ‘black mass’, which are the active materials in electrodes.
Compared with current pyrometallurgy practices, the hydrometallurgical process is less-intensive in terms of energy consumption and material waste, Mercedes says.
“The future of the automobile is electric, and batteries are an essential component of this. To produce batteries in a resource-conserving and sustainable way, recycling is also key. The circular economy is a growth engine and, at the same time, an essential building block for achieving our climate targets!” said German Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
Mercedes board chairman Ola Källenius said the new recycling factory marked a key milestone towards enhancing raw-materials sustainability.
“Together with our partners from industry and science, we are sending a strong signal of innovative strength for sustainable electric mobility and value creation in Germany and Europe,” Källenius added.
IOL