Mercedes-Benz opened a new type of recycling plant for batteries from electric cars in southern Germany on Monday. According to its own information, the company is the first car manufacturer in the world to close the battery recycling cycle with its own factory.
In Kuppenheim, Baden, not far from Stuttgart, an integrated “mechanical-hydrometallurgical process” is used. Unlike the pyrometallurgy currently practiced in Europe, the hydrometallurgical process is less energy intensive and produces smaller amounts of waste.
While plastics, copper, aluminum and iron are sorted by type in the mechanical part of the process, the downstream hydrometallurgical process focuses on the so-called black mass. These are the active materials that make up the electrodes of the battery cells.
The valuable metals cobalt, nickel and lithium are extracted individually in a multi-phase chemical process. These recyclates are of battery quality and therefore suitable for the production of new battery cells. Overall, Mercedes-Benz expects a recovery rate of more than 96 percent from the mechanical-hydrometallurgical recycling plant.
The system, in which Mercedes-Benz has invested a double-digit million sum, is the first in Europe to include all steps from shredding the battery modules to drying and processing the recyclable materials active in the battery.
The battery recycling plant has an annual capacity of 2,500 tons. The recovered materials will be used in the production of more than 50,000 battery modules for new fully electric Mercedes-Benz models.
The company offers recycled batteries as spare parts for all electric vehicles to meet the idea of a closed economic cycle and save resources. In addition, a successful business model with stationary large-scale storage applications was established with subsidiary Mercedes-Benz Energy. Batteries that can no longer be used in the vehicle can be used in second life storage.
Source: Krone
I’m Ben Stock, a journalist and author at Today Times Live. I specialize in economic news and have been working in the news industry for over five years. My experience spans from local journalism to international business reporting. In my career I’ve had the opportunity to interview some of the world’s leading economists and financial experts, giving me an insight into global trends that is unique among journalists.
