Pilot plant battery recycling

Thomas Schmall: The battery is not just a component, but alongside the software, it essentially represents the most important component of an electric car. It is critical for the cost, range, charging time and driving experience. This is why it is crucial for customer satisfaction and therefore also for the future success of the company.

Thomas Schmall: Precisely because the battery is considered to be the heart of electric cars. We want to understand it from cell research to recycling, and acquire total technological expertise right along the value chain. It is good for climate conservation and security of supply if we keep control of the raw material cycle ‒ the pilot plant in Salzgitter enables us to help shape a future issue with major environmental and economic potential.

Mark Möller: First, we very thoroughly inspect the “health” of each battery that is returned to us. If its residual capacity is high enough, it might be used as a replacement component in a car or in a flexible quick charging column. We call this the battery’s “second life”.

Mark Möller: Then it is fully discharged and dismantled. At this stage, for instance, we recover the aluminium of the housing and the copper of the high-voltage cables. Then the modules pass along a conveyor belt into the recycling plant where they are mechanically crushed, the components are dried and passed through a screen to filter out further quantities of aluminium, copper, plastic and steel. With a 400 kg battery, this adds up to more than 100 kg of aluminium, over 20 kg of copper and more than 100 kg of cathode metals.

Mark Möller: Correct. And this is our main focus – these particularly valuable raw materials are mixed up with graphite in what we call “black powder”. This contains essential battery cell components that can be used in the production of new cathode material. The final step is initially carried out by a partner who treats the powder with water and chemical agents to separate out the individual raw materials.

Thomas Schmall: We know from our research that recycled battery raw materials are just as efficient as new ones. As we do not currently have our own series production of battery cells, we can use the recovered material to develop new cathodes in our Centre of Excellence for Battery Cells in Salzgitter and test them in our pilot plant ‒ on our own and with partners, such as Northvolt.

Thomas Schmall: A crucial question that is easy to answer. The battery is the most expensive component of the electric car because it contains a lot of valuable material. If we recover and reuse this material, we will provide a sustainable alternative to extracting more raw materials from the earth.

Thomas Schmall: It is good to keep an eye on the cost, and, of course, we then have to buy fewer raw materials if we produce them ourselves. This will make us less dependent on the market in the long term. There are environmental and social benefits, as well as economic benefits, associated with this. We will save large amounts of CO2 and will place less of a burden on the environment by reusing metals and rare raw materials. We will also create a fully transparent supply chain and, at the same time, a totally new field of work for our employees. That’s a win-win-win situation.

Mark Möller: Today, batteries are generally recycled in a thermal process by smelting them in a blast furnace. Pyrometallurgy, to use the technical term, usually results in over 50% of the material being recovered. Based on the overall process with hydrometallurgical post-treatment, we succeed in recovering over 95% of the battery weight from the process. Our aim is to achieve a closed-loop recycling process of the most important e-raw materials and to use them as cathodes. We will maximise the time until 2030, when gradually more and more batteries will be returned from the market, to optimise the results.

Mark Möller: Correct. We will take back the spent batteries free of charge at any time. The customer will not incur any costs for their disposal. By contrast, the customer might even be rewarded for this. This might be in the form of a subsidy, along the lines of the “Apple Trade In” model, or an attractive leasing offer. In any case, customers will drive away from the dealer’s forecourt with a good conscience because they will know that their battery will be given a second life or will be recycled right away ‒ and the most valuable components will then be incorporated in the battery of a new Group-brand electric car.

Thomas Schmall: Most certainly not: the logistics of this would be too costly and it would not make sense environmentally. Volkswagen Group Components piloted battery recycling on behalf of the Group, and this will then be followed by a roll-out to the brand sites. The location and size of the plants will largely depend on the growth of e-mobility in the individual markets. Until then, we will continue to test and improve the process in Salzgitter as a blueprint and use these findings to prepare for increasing volumes that we will then handle locally.

Thomas Schmall: In my view, this presents excellent opportunities for experts in high-voltage technology. We particularly need specially trained electrical specialists capable of analysing, discharging and dismantling batteries, and supervising the process. New process development skills are also called for. Employees need to understand battery materials and bring knowledge and expertise of mechanical and chemical separation processes to the table to optimise the process.

Thomas Schmall: Yes, but not on the same scale. Recycling involves similar skills to cell production ‒ anyone who takes something apart first needs to know in how it was put together. They need to have knowledge of raw materials, cell composition and processing, as well as analysis parameters and separation processes. We will need these highly specialised people at many sites in future!