Elemental Holding is building first car battery recycling plant in EUa

The plant is going to start operating in 2023.

The company’s new facility designed to recycle lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, as well as other waste containing precious metals, will be constructed in Zawiercie in southern Poland. Elemental Holding has acquired the land for the plant in co-operation with the local authorities and the local special economic zone in Katowice.

“We have reached another milestone in what is one of Europe’s most ambitious commercial projects aimed at reducing emissions as well as providing support for the development of e-mobility and circular economy across the continent. The recycling and reuse of metals from car batteries will lead to carbon savings of as much as 98 percent compared with their primary counterparts. It is therefore seen as a critical part of the transition to a low-carbon economy,” commented Michał Zygmunt, Vice-President of Elemental Holding.

The start of the facility is planned in 2023. It is set to be the EU’s first plant for the recycling of car batteries. It will deploy state-of-the-art technology that will allow for the recovery and green production of nickel, cobalt, lithium as well as other metals and raw materials which are essential for the lithium-ion battery value chain.

As part of the project, a dedicated technology will be developed in co-operation with Poland’s top technological universities from Wrocław and Gliwice, as well as Łukasiewicz Research Network – Institute of Non-Ferrous Metals and leading global suppliers of advanced production equipment.

The project run by Elemental Holding is co-financed by the Polish National Centre for Research and Development (NCBR) with the additional support of the European Commission. Elemental Holding is one of 18 European companies (others include BASF, Solvay, Umicore, BMW, Saft, and Varta) notified by the European Commission under the European Industrial Policy, which aims to create a sustainable mobility value chain in the EU.