Mercedes-Benz has launched Europe’s first integrated battery recycling facility in Kuppenheim, Germany, marking a significant step toward creating a circular economy for EV components. The plant employs a mechanical-hydrometallurgical process that achieves a recovery rate of more than 96 percent for valuable materials including lithium, nickel, and cobalt.
The facility, representing an investment of tens of millions of euros, was inaugurated in the presence of German Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Baden-Württemberg’s Environment Minister Thekla Walker.
“The future of the automobile is electric, and batteries are an essential component of this,” said Chancellor Scholz at the opening ceremony. “To produce batteries in a resource-conserving and sustainable way, recycling is also key.”
The plant operates through a multi-stage process that first sorts and separates plastics, copper, aluminum, and iron mechanically. A subsequent hydrometallurgical process extracts valuable metals from the battery cells’ active materials, known as black mass. The recovered materials are of sufficient quality to be used in new battery production.
The facility operates with 100 percent renewable electricity and includes a rooftop solar system with over 350 kilowatts peak output. With an annual capacity of 2,500 tonnes, the plant can process materials for more than 50,000 battery modules for new Mercedes-Benz electric vehicles.
The project was developed in partnership with Primobius, a joint venture between German engineering firm SMS group and Australian technology developer Neometals. It received funding from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action as part of a research project involving three German universities.
“We are systematically deepening our expertise in the battery value chain,” said Jörg Burzer, Board Member responsible for Production at Mercedes-Benz Group AG. “The innovative technology enables us to recover valuable raw materials from the battery with the highest possible degree of purity. This turns today’s batteries into tomorrow’s sustainable mine for raw materials.”
The company also offers reconditioned batteries as spare parts and repurposes batteries no longer suitable for vehicles in large-scale energy storage systems.
