The automotive manufacturer says the battery recycling plant in Kuppenheim will generate enough recycled materials to produce more than 50,000 new battery modules per year.

Car batteries contain valuable and scarce raw materials such as lithium, nickel and cobalt. To recover these materials for use in new batteries for its future electric vehicles (EVs), Mercedes-Benz has opened a mechanical-hydrometallurgical recycling plant.

The mechanical-hydrometallurgical process not only sorts and separates plastics, copper, aluminium and iron, but the multi-stage process is also able to individually extract valuable metals such as cobalt, nickel and lithium. These recyclates can then be used in the production of new battery cells.

Unlike the established pyrometallurgy process, the auto giant says the plant’s hydrometallurgical process is not only less energy- and resource-intensive, but has a material recovery rate of more than 96%. Energy used for the process comes from green electricity produced...