Mercedes-Benz 2,500 tpa recycling plant commissioned

Mercedes-Benz which is the first external customer to Primobius, the joint venture of Neometals and SMS Group, has been inaugurated in Kuppenheim, southern Germany. The plant is the first integrated pre-processing and material recovery plant in Europe and the first to recover lithium at more than laboratory scale.

The plant is partly funded by German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action as part of a scientific research project with three German universities.

Mercedes-Benz have been pioneers in battery circularity launching its subsidiary Mercedes-Benz already in 2015 which became an early player in repurposing and reuse of batteries. The group is also doing remanufacturing of their own packs, using them as warranty replacements.

The plant, which is the first external project by Primobius, is recovering copper, nickel, cobalt, manganese and lithium as sulphates. Nickel and cobalt sulphate is later crystallized.

While the plant is likely a good fit for the current need of Mercedes-Benz it represent a very small scale compared to similar plants in China and South Korea. It is however a very important step for Primobius which is one of the few European full service players providing both mechanical separation and hydrometallurgical recovery.