This start-up offers car battery recycling

by time news
Cylib Founder

Paul Sabarny (from left), Lilian Schwich and Gideon Schwich want to introduce a highly efficient process for battery recycling to industry.

(Photo: Dominik Fahnenschmidt)

München Lilian Schwich has not yet received a grade for her doctoral thesis – but 3.6 million euros. Venture capitalists are counting on her research to build a leading battery recycling company.

Schwich promises that her start-up Cylib can turn old drive batteries, for example from electric cars, into new raw materials: “We can recover all the components and close the gap in the circular economy.”

It is a procedure that is becoming increasingly important. First, the need for rare materials is increasing. Secondly, manufacturers, especially in Europe, are increasingly obliged to ensure that batteries are reused.

By 2030, the annual volume of lithium-ion batteries to be recycled could be around 230 kilotons – and increase to 1500 kilotons by 2040, according to a study by the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI.

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The drivers of growth are production rejects in the newly created cell production and old batteries from electromobility. This creates a billion-dollar market for recycling. A market leader is missing.

This is how Cylib wants to recover cobalt, lithium and graphite

Cylib wants to assert itself with efficiency. In addition to cobalt, nickel and manganese, lithium and graphite are to be made marketable again from entire battery packs, modules or production scrap: critical raw materials for which the supply risk is considered high.

Lilian Schwich and co-founder Paul Sabarny developed the process at the Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen. According to Schwich, the secret lies in the pre-treatment of the material.

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After the scientists helped to set up the Aachen battery recycling group IME (Institute for Metallurgical Process Engineering and Metal Recycling), they now want to “transfer their research to industry themselves,” says the doctoral student.

The founding team is completed by Lilian Schwich’s husband Gideon Schwich, who, as an industrial engineer and process engineer with a doctorate, is to turn the innovation into a business model.

The conditions for this are good, as the study by the Fraunhofer Institute ISI shows: There is “enormous value potential in used batteries that needs to be leveraged”, the authors state. And further: “The value of the materials that can be recovered according to the current state of the art of a typical vehicle battery is between 600 and 1300 euros and could make Europe a billion dollar market for battery raw materials.”

Investor Mangesius: Car manufacturers will want to get the battery back

At the same time, the study published at the end of 2021 comes to the conclusion: “One process and thus one system technology has not yet been established, so that there is a need in the industry for innovative, green and automatable technologies.”

>> Now also read: Lithium for electric car batteries is becoming scarce

Investor Herbert Mangesius from the Munich venture capitalist Vsquared Ventures believes in the Cylib team. “They understand the complex process end-to-end, manage without harsh chemicals and have patented innovative process steps,” says Mangesius. More than 90 percent of the raw materials could be reused.

Vsquared specializes in investments in research-driven start-ups and has recently invested heavily in the battery sector and talked a lot about it with established companies.

“The business model of car manufacturers is about to change: in future they will sell the car but want to get the battery back,” says Mangesius. It’s about controlling the rare materials so that you don’t have to buy them back on the market for significantly more money.

In addition, manufacturers can no longer present themselves as sustainable simply because they rely on e-mobility, says the investor: “You have to look at the life cycle of the batteries.”

Start-up is looking for partners in industry and is planning a pilot factory

With the investor capital, Cylib now wants to set up a pilot factory in Aachen and repeat the results from the laboratory on an industrial scale. At the same time, Managing Director Gideon Schwich approaches car manufacturers, cell manufacturers and raw material suppliers. “We are currently in talks with various companies about strategic partnerships.”

>> Also read: Lithium, copper, rare earths: Europe is gearing up for the global race for raw materials

According to Herbert Mangesius, the company needs to gain a foothold quickly. The good regulatory environment in Europe is already attracting US competitors such as Redwood Materials.

In addition to Vsquared, the European early-stage investor Speedinvest and several so-called angel investors are involved, including several from the e-mobility sector: Lawrence Leuschner, head of the e-scooter start-up Tier, Torge Thönnessen, founder of the battery cell developer Customcells, and Karim Jalbout , head of human resources at Lilium, which works on a battery-powered air taxi.

More: Lithium production for electric cars is progressing slowly in Europe

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