Industrial giant BASF has signed a letter of intent with Fortum and Nornickel to plan a battery recycling cluster in Harjavalta, Finland, serving the electric vehicle market. This would enable a successful ‘closed loop’ cycle to re-use the critical metals present in used batteries.
Additionally, CO2 reduction will be boosted by using electricity from renewable sources in Finland for the recycling process.
Tim Ingle, Vice President, Precious Metals Refining, Chemicals & Battery Recycling, at BASF, says: “The combination of battery materials production and recycling enables the circular economy by closing the loop. To drive electrification, we are focused on bringing solutions for high energy density cathode active materials and high efficiency lithium extraction for battery recycling.”
Tero Holländer, Head of Business Development, Fortum Recycling and Waste, adds: “By recycling valuable metals in lithium-ion batteries we reduce the environmental impact of electric car batteries by complementing the supply of cobalt, nickel and other critical metals from primary sources. Through our previous acquisition of a Finnish growth company Crisolteq, an expert in low CO2 hydrometallurgical processing, we are very proud that Fortum is now able to increase the recovery rate of valuable materials in lithium-ion batteries from 50% to over 80%.”
The BASF Group employees more than 117,000 employees in almost every country in the world. Its portfolio is organized into six segments: chemicals, materials, industrial solutions, surface technologies, nutrition & care and agricultural solutions.
