Batteries for electric cars: even Mercedes accelerates recycling with an ad hoc system
After losing the Tesla factory, Germany is now racing with battery recycling: the Mercedes project has obtained public funding and will be launched by the end of this year
For a plant that would have produced batteries for Tesla on the outskirts of Berlin that will not be done , another, branded Mercedes, will recycle those on the market. Because the Old Continent's only hope of withstanding the broadsides of the ecological transition, being outside the industrial chain and poor in rare earths, is to go through recycling. They are implementing it in France, the Germans of Mercedes will also start soon, which has announced the start of construction works in Kuppenheim , in the state of Baden-Württemberg, of a factory for the recycling of batteries for electric vehicles.
THE STAGES OF THE RECYCLING OF MERCEDES
The project, which has obtained public funding and is obviously also supported by the Stuttgart company, requires progress at a good pace, with the site opening already within this year. In fact, at least the mechanical dismantling of the accumulators should have started by the end of 2023.
At the beginning of 2024, however, a "hydrometallurgy" pilot plant will be inaugurated, a method of extracting metals through the use of chemical solutions capable of separating the various minerals and allowing their subsequent recovery. It will have the capacity to treat 2,500 tons of batteries per year and will allow the recovery of materials in sufficient quantities to produce over 50,000 battery modules. However, an increase in volumes is already expected in the medium to long term.
For all this, Mercedes-Benz collaborates with the technological partner Primobius (joint venture between the German mechanical engineering company SMS group and the Australian developer of the Neometals project).
GOAL: RECOVER 96% OF THE BATTERIES
The goal is ambitious: to extract all the rarest possible materials from used batteries, with a recycling rate of over 96% for plastic, copper, aluminum, iron, nickel, cobalt, manganese, lithium, carbon, graphite or plastic .
When fully operational, the entire Mercedes recycling plant will occupy an area of 7,000 square meters with various units that will handle every aspect of battery and end-of-life management: from the dismantling of the modules to the extraction of minerals, up to the processing of all components.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/smartcity/batterie-per-auto-elettriche-anche-mercedes-accelera-sul-riciclo-con-un-impianto-ad-hoc/ on Mon, 06 Mar 2023 11:44:53 +0000.