Sustainability passes through recycling: this sentence could never be truer than in the batteries of electric cars.

Mercedes, as he did Volkswagen from the very first steps in electric mobility (here the article) seems to have understood it in turn, so it is Friday 3 March, on its own official sitethe automaker announced the grand opening of its new battery recycling hub in Kuppenheim, Germany.

Mercedes battery recycling

This way, not only will the number of resources needed to assemble new batteries be reduced, but it will also be created a closed circuit that allows the reuse of precious raw materials.

The first phase of the plant – the mechanical dismantling of electric vehicle batteries – should begin at the end of this year which – according to the brand’s estimates – should be followed closely by the opening of a hydrometallurgy pilot plant.

Mercedes battery recycling

All within a single production pole – whose investment has an amount “two-digit in millions of euros”which was also financed by the German Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Protection as part of a scientific research project – and whose construction will be budgeted CO₂ neutral.

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With a recycling rate above 96%in Kuppenheim they want to create what Mercedes itself has defined as a “mine of tomorrow”.

Mercedes battery recycling

Jörg Burzer, Member of the Board of Management of Mercedes-Benz Group AG, Supply Chain Management and Production, said:

“The innovative technological approach enables us to incorporate the valuable raw materials into the new Mercedes-EQ vehicles. We are constantly expanding our expertise in the battery value chain and are taking an important step in our strategy towards “only electric”. Together with the Our partners in industry and science, we are demonstrating the potential of Baden-Württemberg and Germany to innovate in the field of sustainable electromobility.”

In the future, the Kuppenheim factory will cover every step of the process: from module-level dismantling, to shredding, drying and processing of battery materials.

The hydrometallurgy process will allow a true circular economy of battery materials. Each stage will be performed as sustainably as possible, using electricity from renewable sourcespartly also produced on site from the photovoltaic system on the roof of the building.

With battery recycling factory, Mercedes-Benz (in partnership with Primobius) is collecting important know-how in the field of circular economywhile creating new highly specialized job opportunities.

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Mercedes battery recycling

The company expects this investment will lead it to become less and less dependent on supplies of raw materialscurrently largely in the hands of the Asian market.

The pilot plant should have an annual capacity of 2,500 tons. The recovered materials will be put back into the recycling cycle to produce over 50,000 battery modules for the new Mercedes-Benz models.

Based on the results of the pilot factory, production volumes could be increased in the medium to long term.

The number of European plants dedicated to the recycling of electric car batteries continues to grow, increasingly removing the fear of entire and endless landfills full of used cells.

In addition to those of VW and Mercedes, we should not forget that of the Norwegian Hydrovolt, which we talked about in this article.

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