Battery recycling may experience a revolution! A giant factory is being built in Germany

• A giant plant for recycling batteries from electric cars is being built in Germany
• The start-up is supported by Porsche and Bosch
• It will be the largest enterprise of its kind in Europe, thus reducing hazardous waste

Electromobility is on the rise and with the announced end of internal combustion engines after a year 2035 the question arises as to what fuel we will drive on. Currently, it seems that electric car manufacturers will become the biggest players, and it is possible to use various subsidies for these cars. But there is one big problem with electric cars – what about their batteries when they reach the end of their life? Their recycling is difficult, their disposal even more difficult. And there will be more of them all the time.

Currently, there are already various companies that focus on recycling of lithium-ion batterieswhich are intended for disposal and would become unpleasant waste. Currently, the largest of them is in Europe Hydrovoltwhich is a joint project of the Swedish company Northvolt, which produces batteries for electric cars, and the Norwegian company Hydro – which deals with the production of aluminum and renewable energy sources.

However, they will soon have competition – a start-up was already established in Germany in 2022 Cylibwhich aims to build the largest recycling plant for batteries from electric cars in Europe. The car company invested about 55 million euros in it Porschethe appliance manufacturer also joined BoschWorld Fund or DeepTech & Climate Fonds. And right now it is starting in the Chempark industrial complex near West German Dormagen to create a giant complex that will have an area 236,000 square meters.

30,000 tons of batteries per year

Currently the biggest player on the European market Hydrovolt can recycle 12,000 tons of discarded batteries from electric cars annually. Cylib aims to process 2.5 times as many, that is 30,000 tons per year. Not only will this significantly reduce hazardous waste, which many countries still don’t quite know how to deal with, but the recycled batteries will subsequently be very well usable. The CNBC server obtained the information from an unnamed person who claims that a large part of the recycled batteries could be used by Porsche.

The whole building is supposed to stand around 180 million euros and for the start-up Cylib, which was founded only 2 years ago, this is a big commitment. It was founded by the young German entrepreneur Lilian Schwich with her husband Gideon Schwich, who were also joined by Paul Sabarny. The plans of this trio are in line with the priorities European Unionwhich is betting a lot on electromobility and is looking for different ways to recycle and sustainably in the field of electric car batteries.

Cylib plans to use technology based on recovery of lithium and graphite water based. The material from old batteries should easily be used for new ones.

At the same time, it should not start and end with one giant factory – if it succeeds, the enterprising three-leaf clover plans to build others, not only in Germany, but also elsewhere in Europe. According to the plans, this first plant should start operating already in the year 2026.

What do you think about recycling car batteries?

Resources: CNBC, Cylib