BASF to source black mass from Stena Recycling

The Swedish recycling company Stena Recycling, which in March 2023 inaugurated a 10,000 tpa pre-processing plant in Halmstad, Sweden will sell its black mass to BASF to feed their planned hydrometallurgical plant in Ludwigshafen, Germany. The agreement was announced jointly by the two companies.

Initially the black mass from Stena will be supplied to BASF’s prototype metal refinery in Schwarzheide, a plant we estimate to have a cell equivalent capacity of 10,000 tonnes or around 5,000 tonnes of black mass. The prototype plant, with an original commissioning date of 2023 followed by a commercial plant in 2025, is yet to start operation. Meanwhile BASF is also building its own black mass plant in Schwarzheide which will have a infeed capacity of 15,000 tonnes.

BASF was early in its ambition to build a complete battery value chain in Europe with precursor production in Harjavalta, Finland and cathode production in Schwarzheide, Germany. The cathode plant was inaugurated in 2023. The precursor plant which has struggled with permitting is co-located with Fortum's material recovery plant, the first dedicated hydrometallurgicall battery recycling plant in Europe. To obtain a fully circular chain the recycled material in Schwarzheide needs first to go to Harjavalta and will then make it back to Germany for final cathode production.

Stena Recycling was in a similar way early in finding a partner in Johnson and Matthey, a partnership which collopased as a consuence of JM's exit from battery material production in 2021. Through the agreement Stena now close this important gap which is key to its offering to European automotive and battery industry which needs to secure recycled content in its batteries on the European market while having access to a reliable recycling partner for recalls and end-of-life treatment of batteries.