Mitsubishi Materials to acquire German recycler HC Starck Tungsten

HC Starck Tungsten, a German metal producer owned by the Vietnamese Masan High-Tech Materials is to be acquired by Japanese Mitsubishi Materials Corporation for $134.5 million. HC Starck is renowned for its high-quality tungsten powders and alloys, as well as its substantial tungsten recycling operations and has also developed a material recovery process for black mass from lithium-ion batteries. Headquartered in Goslar, Germany, operates production facilities in Germany, Canada, and China.

While HC Starck's tungsten business is the prime target for Mitsubishi Materials the company has been active in battery recycling in several years and has ambitions to commercialise the material recovery technology developed by HC Starck. For this Masan High-Tech will have a future upside probably in the form of royalties.

HC Starck announced in 2023 that it had formed a consortium with several partners to commercialise battery recycling including LB.systems, Battery Damage Service , Electrocycling GmbH, Albemarle Germany and IVH Industriepark und Verwertungszentrum Harz GmbH.

Mitsubishi Materials has previously worked in a partnership with Enviro and its subsidiary Volta Recycling on the development of a hydrometallurgic process for recovery of materials from battery scrap and in December 2023 the company decided to build a pilot plant at Onahama Smelter & Refinery of Onahama Smelting and Refining in Iwaki City, Fukushima Prefecture to further develop the technologies.