Primobius targets North American EV battery recycling

Australian-German joint-venture firm Primobius has entered into an initial agreement with Canadian steel producer Stelco towards establishing a plant to extract and recycle battery metals from electric vehicles (EVs) in North America.

The agreement contemplates the formation of a 50:50 joint venture to recycle battery packs from scrap and end-of-life EVs, Perth-based Neometals said. It owns half of Primobius, with the other half owned by German engineering firm SMS.

The initial agreement will examine the business case for a facility to process battery cells through Primobius' refining process, which has been proven at trials in Germany to recover lithium, nickel, cobalt and manganese.

Primobius, which is planning a 18,250 t/yr lithium-ion battery recycling operation in Germany and has an initial agreement with Japanese trading firm Itochu to recycle stationary energy storage batteries, will be expected to supply and construct a recycling plant with a nominal 20,000 t/yr battery cell processing capacity. Stelco, which supplies steel products to the automotive, construction, energy and appliance sectors, will arrange the supply of battery cell feed to the plant to be built next to its proposed vehicle recycling operation.

"The Stelco focus on securing much larger end of life volumes of electric vehicles provides potential feed for significantly larger scaler plants than those required to cater to the volumes of production scrap from lithium-ion battery cell production," Neometals' managing director Chris Reed said.

Neometals cited research showing that five battery mega-factories (super-sized producers of lithium-ion battery cells for the EV market) are in production in North America, with the US expected to have the second-largest megafactory capacity after China by 2025. EV batteries are expected to have an average lifespan of around eight years.

By Angus Macmillan