BATTERIES
71recyclinginternational.com | July/August | 2022
embrace megatrends and technology
leadership,’ comments company ceo
Mathias Miedreich. Focussing on sus-
tainable growth and producing mate-
rials ‘for a better life’, he adds, will
allow the recycler to become ‘a net
beneficiary of a changing world’.
BASF: EV FOCUS
Chemical company BASF is another
big name taking a bite out of the bat-
tery recycling business. It is building a
commercial scale battery recycling
plant in Germany. The multi-million-
dollar site will be able to handle 15
000 tonnes of electric vehicle (EV) bat-
teries and battery production scrap
per year.
BASF’s recycling hub will be in the city
of Schwarzheide and will strengthen
the sustainable production of cathode
active materials in Europe. The loca-
tion is said to be ‘ideal’ because of
the presence of many EV car manufac-
turers and cell producers in Germany
and neighbouring countries.
Operations are scheduled to start in
early 2024 and the plant will create
about 30 production jobs. The
German government has provided
funding of EUR 175 million towards
the cutting-edge facility.
BASF will recover valuable battery
metals, notably lithium, nickel, cobalt
and manganese to be the feedstock
for the commercial hydrometallurgical
refinery for recycling batteries that
BASF plans to build in the next few
years.
‘With this investment, we take the
next step to establish the full battery
recycling value chain at BASF,’ says
Peter Schuhmacher, president of the
catalyst division at BASF. ‘This allows
us to optimise the end-to-end recy-
cling process and reduce the CO2
footprint.’ He emphasises the need to
reduce industry’s dependency on
mined raw materials.
Legislation is hailed as an important
lever of change. The soon-to-be
revised EU Battery Regulation will
continue to cover the recycling effi-
ciency of lithium-ion batteries, as well
as material recovery and recycled con-
tent targets for nickel, cobalt and lithi-
um.
Fotobijschrift
KADERKOP
??
Volkswagen is leading a research effort to recycle batteries multiple times.
FEWER FLAMES IN AUSTRALIA
Wastech Engineering won the ‘Most Innovative Product & Technology
Award’ from Australia’s Fire Protection Association. Company ceo Scott
Russell was proud to receive the prize, given in recognition of his business
bringing the US solution Fire Rover to Australia to keep high risk clients’
recycling operations safer. The system detects and puts out fires, notably
those caused by batteries hidden in the waste stream.
70-71_batterytrendupdate.indd 71 05-07-2022 13:40
