Mercedes closes the battery circuit

Mercedes closes the battery circuit

Mercedes-Benz is the first automobile manufacturer in the world to close the battery recycling loop with its own plant. With the recycling factory in Kuppenheim in southern Germany, the company is starting a true circular economy in order to significantly reduce the consumption of valuable primary resources. Unlike established processes today, the expected recovery rate of the mechanical-hydrometallurgical recycling plant is more than 96 percent. Valuable, limited raw materials such as lithium, nickel and cobalt can be recovered so that they are suitable for use in new batteries for future fully electric Mercedes-Benz vehicles. The company invested a double-digit million sum in building the new battery recycling factory. Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Baden-Württemberg's Environment Minister Thekla Walker found out more on-site at the opening in Kuppenheim, Baden.

"Mercedes-Benz has set itself the goal of building the most desirable cars in a sustainable way. As a pioneer in automobile manufacturing, we are setting a milestone on the path to more sustainable raw materials with Europe's first integrated mechanical-hydrometallurgical battery recycling factory," says Ola Källenius, CEO of Mercedes-Benz Group AG. Olaf Scholz, Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, congratulates: "Circular economy is a growth engine and at the same time an essential building block for achieving our climate goals. I congratulate Mercedes-Benz for its courage and foresight in this investment in Kuppenheim. Germany remains a leading market for new and innovative technologies." For the new battery recycling factory, Mercedes-Benz is cooperating with the technology partner Primobius, a joint venture between the German plant and mechanical engineering company SMS group and the Australian process technology developer Neometals. The facility is funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection as part of a scientific research project with three German universities. The project looks at the entire recycling process chain including logistics and reintegration concepts. The partners are making an important contribution to the future scaling of the battery recycling economy in Germany.

For the first time in Europe, the Mercedes-Benz battery recycling factory covers all steps from shredding the battery modules to drying and processing the battery-active recyclable materials. While the mechanical process sorts plastics, copper, aluminum and iron in a complex, multi-stage process, the downstream hydrometallurgical process is dedicated to 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-stage chemical process. These recyclates are of battery quality and are therefore suitable for the production of new battery cells. Unlike the pyrometallurgy that is currently established in Europe, the hydrometallurgical process is less energy-intensive and produces smaller amounts of waste. It works with low process temperatures of up to 80 degrees Celsius and therefore uses less energy. In addition, like all Mercedes-Benz production plants, the recycling factory is operated with a CO2-neutral balance. It is supplied 100 percent with green electricity. The roof area of ​​the 6,800 square meter building is equipped with a photovoltaic system that has an output of more than 350 kilowatt peak. The Mercedes-Benz battery recycling factory in Kuppenheim has an annual capacity of 2,500 tons. The recovered materials are used in the production of more than 50,000 battery modules for new fully electric Mercedes-Benz models. Based on the knowledge gained, production volumes could be scaled up in the medium to long term.