2023-08-16 07:20:04
Battery recycling in Salzgitter
The market will turn from 2030, says RWTH professor Kampker.
(Photo: dpa)
Munich According to a study by RWTH Aachen University and the management consultancy PwC, setting up battery recycling in the EU will cost around nine billion euros by 2035, but it will be worth it: After a long dry spell, the recycling of e-car batteries in Europe will “already be a profitable and sustainable business before 2035,” said PwC industry expert Jörn Neuhausen. “Recycled material could account for up to 30 percent of the lithium, nickel and cobalt required in battery cell production in 2035.”
The general increase in electrification and increasing battery production for electric cars will drive the recycling market in Europe, said Achim Kampker, Professor at RWTH Aachen University. In the next few years, waste from the growing gigafactories in particular would be recycled, and there would still be overcapacity in the recycling plants. From 2030, however, the market is likely to turn, because then the first large number of electric cars will be phased out.
From then on, the recycling market will be at full capacity. According to the study, this requires investments of more than 2.2 billion euros for the annual processing of around 570,000 tons of battery material. “In order to be able to process all recyclable materials from 2035 onwards, market participants will have to spend a further seven billion euros on their recycling capacities,” said Kampker.
Due to the high investment costs, the current structure of the value chain will develop in the direction of large recycling centers. However, the combination of high material volume and low recycling costs will create an ideal market environment for the battery industry. “Battery recycling will be a profitable and sustainable business in Europe before 2035,” said Neuhausen.
South Korea and China are pioneers in battery recycling with their 2013 guidelines to recycle around 90 percent of batteries. With its revised battery regulation, the EU is now setting minimum proportions of recovered raw materials such as cobalt, lead and lithium in new batteries.
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