Mercedes-Benz has opened Europe's first battery recycling plant, making it the first car manufacturer worldwide to close the battery recycling loop with its own in-house facility.

The mechanical-hydrometallurgical recycling plant in Kuppenheim, southern Germany is expected to have a recovery rate of more than 96 per cent, reclaiming raw materials such as lithium, nickel and cobalt in a way that will be suitable for use in new batteries for future vehicles.

The recycling plant covers all steps from shredding battery modules to drying and processing active battery materials. The mechanical process sorts and separates plastics, copper, aluminium 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 therefore suitable for use in the production of new battery cells.

Unlike the existing pyrometallurgy process, the hydrometallurgical process is less-intensive in terms of energy consumption and material waste. In addition, the recycling plant operates in a net carbon-neutral manner and is supplied with 100 per cent green electricity. The roof area of the 6800 square-metre building is equipped with a photovoltaic system with a peak output of more than 350KW.

The plant has an annual capacity of 2,500 tonnes. The recovered materials feed into the production of more than 50,000 battery modules for EVs.

The opening comes at a critical time in EU vehicle manufacturer, as tariffs have been applied to Chinese EVS, VW has, for the first time, outlined major closures and redundancies.

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